


I'm a Warrior (But I'm a Woman Too)

by IShipThem



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Clint/Phill is kinda background, F/M, a lot of cursing that's Tasha of course, also Bruce/Betty and Thor/Jane as total background, and mild sexism too, and some Tasha/Rhodey, first fic on AO3, mild shit being said about bisexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-15 17:37:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 47,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IShipThem/pseuds/IShipThem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The marriage of Natasha Stark and Steve Rogers avoided the Civil War, but it goes way further back than that. It was the first time Steve met Tasha, the come and goes between then, the fact that even though the things Steve loved about her were pretty much the same - the genius, the stubbornness, the heart of golden under a pile of emotional barrier - Natasha Stark isn’t Anthony Stark.</p><p>(A character study of sorts. I wanted to explore all that went different for Tasha because she is a woman, and had to deal with whole different societal expectation.)<br/>(Previously 'One Extra Chromosome' - changed because it was pointed to me that was transphobic. I'm very sorry about that. Have a The Last Airbender reference, instead! )<br/>(Thanks to my two lovely betas of Tumblr, Scoutschillings and Stevegfuckingrogers)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No Boobplates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scifigrl47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigrl47/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: mention of rape, mild sexism and Tasha swearing a lot
> 
> If anyone sees anything wrong - warnings that should be put, misspellings - feel free to warn me!
> 
> First fic on AO3 and on the Superhusbands fandom. Oh God. Whatever can I do I just love Natasha Stark.
> 
> And a big thank you to my two betas, Scoutschillings and Stevegfuckingrogers. x3
> 
> Finally, if anyone is confused, this fic has been posted on my Tumblr (bits of it, anyway), but now that I have betas I'm tidying it up and reposting it here. Once it catches up to what I posted on Tumblr, both versions will be the same. Probably.

=======================================

When Natasha Stark created the armor, she hadn’t the time to worry about design. For one thing, she didn’t have lot to work with. If she could build a miniaturized arc reactor out of scraps, she damn well could make do for a super powered battle suit – she simply couldn’t be picky about it. Whatever could be molded into suitable protection, whatever functioned, whatever they had available – they used it.  
And above all else, Tasha needed the armor functional – needed it powerful – and she needed it _now_. She and Yinsen knew the terrorists were starting to stir, to realize they were up to something, and that Natasha had never had an intention _in helping_ l them to build a Fourth of July _firecracker_ , much less a _missile._

And when they figured it out, she was absolutely sure the fragile protection their leader had granted her would expire. No more keeping his men in check, no more this ill pretense of chivalry. Natasha knew it would take only a tiny slip to go from being held captive, tortured and forced to build weapons to being held captive, tortured, _raped_ and forced to build weapons.

Or being dead.

Therefore, Natasha and Yinsen built the first version of armor as fast as they possibly could, with whatever materials they could muster, and as a result, its original design looked huge, heavy and dense- but functional.

It gets the job done and it gets her out of there, but it failed to save Yinsen, and as Natasha kneels next to the man she swears she’s never felt so maddeningly, crushingly, infuriatingly _powerless_. So _useless_ that she can’t even save the man who saved her. The feeling overwhelms her for a heartbeat, threatening to swallow her, before Tasha can hold it back and down. This is not where she gives up. Not on this filthy cave, and not when Yinsen did all of this to get her out.

So Tasha slaps the faceplate back down. And gets herself out. 

When she’s finally at home, back at the workshop, and recreating the armor anew, brighter and better, she runs into a problem. Not exactly a problem. More like a… dilemma.

It happens while the brunette is working on the joints, perfecting the system that allows it to move alongside her body. She’s making some compromising poses to get her own measurements, trying to record every inch perfectly – that was before Tasha realized that she could simply ask JARVIS for a full-body scan, but really, it had been some days without sleeping and the caffeine in her blood was growing low and, let’s face it, it was _so not_ the most compromising positions she had ever put herself into. There’s some random TV show on the background, simply because Tasha had forgotten to turn it off, and after she accidentally tips her chair backward and falls on her butt, the word “boobplate” travels back towards her and the engineer raises her head to see what the TV is talking about.

On the screen, there’s a special about movie costumes, focusing – the coincidence makes her snicker – on armory. A specialist is explaining why some of the Hollywood armors suck so badly, using a woman’s chest plate as an example. The metal follows the curve of the woman’s chest perfectly and it’s just _stupid_ , don’t they realize that’s gonna get the woman _killed?_

“That’s gonna crash her sternum, that’s what it’ll do”, grumbled Natasha, picking herself up off the floor, “no, no, _no_ , what the fuck is _wrong_ with you, do you _want_ to get an arrow through her heart? Amateurs. Bunch of ignorant amateurs” she mutters to herself, rolling her eyes, as the special displays a fight scene from the movie.

_“…a truly good armor should look the same no matter if it’s a man or a woman. There are many layers of padding underneath this, and it erases the entire figure. There’s no need whatsoever for ‘boobplates’.”_

Natasha freezes in her tracks and looks back over her shoulder to the specialist in the TV and it dawns on her: _no one is going to realize there’s a woman underneath the armor, will they?_

Of course not. A highly technological flying battle suit? They would _immediately_ assume it was a man. Natasha hadn’t gotten around to creating the final design, still perfecting the internal workings, the circuitry, the programming, but when it was all said and done, she wasn’t going to put _fucking boobplates_ on her armor, so what was to keep anyone from assuming it was a guy underneath the red-and-gold?

(And she sure as hell wasn’t painting it _pink._ Natasha had worn enough pink on the first five years of her life to last an eternity and she had an oath to herself to never, _ever_ put on not even a single pink hair tie. Besides, pink armor? Where did her brain even get that idea? No, seriously, how come that concept even sprung into life? Maybe she _does_ need to sleep a bit.)

Natasha sat back on her favorite spinning chair, toying with a screwdriver. Dummy was wheeling around happily, clanking things against one other, and generally being an annoying, familiar background noise.

"My lady?” Called JARVIS, helpfully, “perhaps it’d more effectual if I ran a full body scan for your measurements.”

“Hum? Oh, right, yeah, Jarvis, that’d be great, do that.” Agreed Natasha, “Dummy, what did I say about- no, Dummy, kid, we have gone _through_ this, no hitting Butterfingers with the mixer! This is not going to get it on! Is that- wait, no, is that the _old_ mixer? Where did you even find that piece of garbage? We threw it out mon- oh, you know what, that’s it, Dummy, come over here, that’s _it_ , I’m donating you to a City College.”

So while Tasha was trying to get her ADHD robot to behave, she was actually debating with herself. 

Okay, so she could make the armor relatively genderless and… wait, there was a word for it, wait a second, right, yeah, _androgynous_ , she could do it, not very hard, not when you’ve built a non-Newtonian propulsion system that allows you to fucking _fly_. And she _could_ let people in general believe it was a man piloting the suit and no one would ever make the connection. _Ever._ Or she could, you know, somehow-, she was Natasha Stark, she didn’t need to resort to _boobplates_ ,- let them know it was a _woman,_ under there, thank you very much. 

In the end, Natasha followed true to her one first and foremost golden rule when it comes to public opinion: she does whatever the fuck she feels like doing and completely overlooks anyone else’s opinion. 

Therefore, the second armor, red and gold, fast, smart, and being chased by the military air force, is not drastically different from the original gender-neutral design, but yet not the same: its lines are a tad bit more slimmer, the face plate slightly more delicate, yet strong, the voice filters programmed to match her natural pich.

But no boobplates, fuck you very much.


	2. Bisexual Isn’t Confused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: again... shit being said about bisexuals. Natasha has a dirty mouth. Nothing much. If anyone finds anything, please do warn me! Thank you, lovelies.
> 
> Resposted after being beta-ed by Scout (scoutschillings in Tumblr) and Serena (stevegfuckingrogers in Tumblr). Thank you!

=======================================

Bisexual isn’t confused.

And the last person to say that to Natasha was a gay man, which made the whole thing just sadder. It also didn’t keep her from breaking his teeth. 

It honestly bothers her more when people _inside_ the LGBT community feel the need to lash out on her. Tasha has lost _count_ of the number of rude letters she’s received from angry mothers and even _institutions_ telling her she’s setting up an horrible example to teens and that she’s tainting the name of bisexuals _everywhere._

 _Excuse me,_ the engineer always feels the need to say when one of those reach her ears, _I’m not a slut because I’m bisexual. I’m a slut because I like sex!_

However, it also true that Tasha ends up _helping_ many young teens she isn’t even aware of until they make a special It Gets Better aid that features a number of lesbians and bisexual young girls telling the internet how Natasha Stark helped them out of their closets. It’s part of a series of videos that focus on the impact it makes on people when celebrities come out to the public.

The last one to testify is a young African American girl wearing a _I Love NY_ t-shirt, with astonishing chocolate eyes, short curls and a dazzlingly happy smile.

“My name is Sarah”, she tells the interviewer, “and I don’t think miss Stark remembers it, but when I was thirteen years old, my father was invited to a charity event she was attending, and he let me tag along because I had the biggest girl crush on her. I even had a picture of her in _my wallet.”_

Sarah laughs, and the sound of it is clear and young and cheerful, “Dad introduced me to her. And after stammering for a whole minute trying to convey my undying love for Miss Stark, she managed to calm me down and talked to me for a much longer time than I remember her dedicating to the reporters. We talked, amongst other things, about the fact that even though I loved her very much, I was beginning to have feelings for a girl at my soccer club. I was afraid wasn’t ever going to look at me.” Sarah’s eyes become softer, “and after she gave me some surprisingly helpful advice, I asked for an autograph that, I’ll admit it, I still have to this day.”

“A few months ago I graduated High School and now I’m heading to college. When I received my acceptance letter, I asked that girl from my soccer if she’d move in with me.” The grin that spread in the blonde’s face was heartbreakingly blissful, “And she said yes. And I own that to Miss Stark. I always wanted to thank her, but I didn’t know how, so when I heard about the _It Gets Better_ project, I immediately set out for finding all the people she has helped. I just wanted to say… Thank you, Miss Stark.”

And as the video ends with a montage of all the girls featured repeating “thank you, Miss Stark”, Natasha thought to herself through a clogged throat: _I do remember her._

Well, so maybe. Maybe it _is_ worth it, hearing stupid statements from people that should know better, if it means she gets to make this kind of difference. Of course, it’s been years ever since anyone was suicidal enough to say anything to her face, but they don’t need to. They still get their point across pretty well behind her back.

Her sexuality has been an issue ever since Tasha was sixteen and first realized she liked girls – back when she had sex for the first time and the media found out about it, never again leaving her alone.  
It doesn’t come as any surprise to her that most people have trouble believing she waited _that long._

But by sixteen the brunette had gotten _so much crap_ already from those condescending, sexist, full-of-themselves old men at Stark Industries, at MIT, AND pretty much everywhere. When she was six and building engines it was “cute”. But as she grew up and continued to outsmart them it had became annoying. And sooner, rather than later, they were gritting their teeth every time Natasha felt obliged to point out they were a bunch of incompetents.

Ironically enough, the _only_ man who never thought her gender had anything to do with it was her father. Howard would’ve had to realize he had a daughter _at all_ before he could be misogynistic towards her. And he never quite got that far. 

But, then again, that was _only_ her father. It wasn’t, not by far, the rule.

Therefore Natasha has developed a sixth sense and an old sore spot for people who think they’re better than her, for people who try to treat her like a little girl, for people who see the breasts first and the mind last. And she felt _sickened_ at the idea of letting any of those gross teenagers at MIT touch her, with their obvious leery stares and shocking incapacity of thinking with anything but their groins.  
None of them had any appeal for Tasha when she was sixteen, with one special exception, and she wouldn’t act on it because the young genius knew what Rhodey would say. Up until then, she’d been doing just great by herself, thank you very much. 

And she _had_ tried to make it clear, so, really, if you ever got tossed out of her bedroom with no clothes on, you only have yourself to blame. That had actually happened. Once. Natasha sometimes bursts into laughing randomly when she remembers the expression on the dude’s face. Priceless.

Then, of course, the obviousness of her sexuality had hit her in the head like a bullet, and damn, not realizing it before still makes her feel incredibly dumb to this day.

It happened on a Friday night at one of Tasha’s favorite bars. It was one of the few that would overlook age for money. She was sitting in a couch with a circle of colleagues, drink in her hand when, with no warning at all, the girl sitting to her left leaned forward and kissed the teenager, startling Tasha right out of her drunk haze. 

Try as she might, Tasha could never remember her name, probably because she never knew it, but she can recall other things: she had purple highlights and cherry lip-gloss, and although her real interest was surely not girls, she kissed very well. Tasha didn’t even mind that much when her lips got sticky and sweet tasting.

The girl backed away and she blinked, light-headed, a barely coherent thought slowly forming in her mind.

_Hey. Girls! They are amazing, right?_

And Tasha _had_ thought women were attractive before that night, but – _of course_ women were attractive! How could someone not see it?

She liked girls.

Well, _duh._

But that didn’t mean she had completely ruled out guys. If Natasha had ever stopped to consider, or had actually worried about labeling herself – which, uhm, no, she never did – the problem is that she has _much_ higher standards for men. With girls, hey, they’re beautiful and it’s all in the spirit of fun. They get something out of it, _she_ gets something out of it, everyone is happy and laid, _no one_ is left unsatisfied, no harm done, no one gets pregnant! 

And once, when a date woke up the next day with excruciating menstrual cramps, Tasha didn’t hover around like an anguished dodo bird, but instead brought her pain pills and let her sleep the rest of the day unbothered. 

Many years later, when Pepper entered her life, Tasha had thought, maybe even hoped for something more, but... well, unfortunately, she’s much too straight. Maybe she should feel grateful for that. At least the woman looks very pretty in heels. 

With men, however, it’s complicated. It always feels as if she’s letting her guard down dangerously low. Exposing herself too much. So, for Tasha, men are fewer and farther between. 

Then there’s Rhodey, and Rhodey is a completely different scenario.

It’s easier with girls. It’s uncomplicated. And the brunette makes sure it stays like that.

When the press got hold of Natasha’s “dirty little secret”, they went nuts – like a bunch of hyenas. It drove Tasha absolutely crazy. And to make it worse, the headlines were soon followed by a round of increasingly frustrating people telling her it’s _natural at her age,_ and that she might be _confused._ That leaves the young genius ready to kill the next person who tries to meddle in her sex life.

That’s when a sorry excuse of a gay man suggests bisexuality isn’t a Real Thing. And Tasha breaks his teeth. 

“I like dick!” Growls the brunette, frustrated and not only a little drunk “and I like pussy! What’s fucking wrong with that?!”

“Tasha, is there really a need to yell pussy in the middle of the bar?” Sighs Rhodey, passing one of her arms over his shoulders. He knows how much she hates being carried bridal-style. 

“Pussy.” Retorts Natasha, petulant, tossing her hair back and staring square at her best friend, possible crush, not that she’ll ever admit it. _“Vagina”_ , she adds and he rolls his eyes uncomfortably. “Why are you so afraid of the word vagina, Rhodey, is not the freaking boogie man, it’s female anatomy, _it hasn’t got teeth!”_

 _“I am not…_ you know what, forget it, I’m not having this discussion with you right now” replied the man, helping her up.

Years later, they still give her crap over being a lesbian, being bisexual, being promiscuous, being shameless… they give Natasha crap over pretty much every breath she takes. She learns to deal with it the same way she learns to deal with everything else. She goes out with women she feels like going out with, she sleeps with men she feels like sleeping with, and if anyone asks – and oh _God,_ how they ask – she’s bisexual.

And _no,_ she does not take any further questions on the subject.


	3. The Gold-and-Titanium-Alloy Woman Doesn’t Quite Have the Same Ring to It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Creepy Obadiah creeping. Nothing glaring. As always, feel free to warn me of anything that I missed!
> 
> Resposted after being beta-ed by Scout (scoutschillings in Tumblr) and Serena (stevegfuckingrogers in Tumblr). Thank you for the awesome beta!

When Natasha was little she didn’t much care for superheroes – with, of course, the special exception of one. But she _will_ put the evidence on fire before letting anyone know of the Captain America Helmet she once had at five, and that she didn’t take off for _weeks_ , not even during the bath. No one can ever know about it. No one. _Ever._

In her defense, she _was_ only five. 

The point is that Tasha had never paid attention to superheroes until she… kinda became one herself.

“Iron Woman”, repeated Natasha, arching one eyebrow as Pepper worked on her face, “that’s kinda catchy, there’s a ring to it, I mean, it’s not _technically_ accurate, it’s a gold and titanium alloy – Ow! Goddamnit Pepper! Why are you torturing me?!”

“I’m shaping your eyebrows. They look like caterpillars.” Replied the ginger, looking unimpressed. 

“Your pretty face hides deep hatred, Pepper.” said Tasha, folding the newspaper. _“Hatred_. And I wonder just _who_ tipped those idiots that it was, in fact, a woman behind the armor. Do you think they _actually_ paid attention to waist and hip proportions or do they have, I don’t _know_ , some sort of… informant?” 

“I have no idea”, retorted the woman, softly, pressing her lips together, “Maybe _someone_ tipped the media because they wanted peace of mind. Maybe that _someone_ was trying to avoid being driven to madness. It could have been, I’m not sure, perhaps a beautiful and highly efficient _someone_ who didn’t want to hear her boss talking about stupid macho man for weeks.” She paused, smiling innocently. “Just maybe.”

Natasha had to laugh, because of course Pepper would know. _Of course_ Pepper would go out of her way to point out it was a woman’s shape, probably in an anonymous letter. Tasha didn’t know how she’d done it, but of course Pepper would have done it. Because Pepper knew Tasha, and, most of all, her beautiful, yet highly efficient and sadly completely hetero PA knew of blind, stupid macho man. She had stomped the impossibly high heels her boss loved to buy her on quite a few of those.

Then Coulson marched in and everything started to feel rushed. Natasha wanted to bang her forehead on the table – that’d be a _bad idea_ , by the way – when the man came up with the bodyguard story.

Because really, that she’d go to the effort of making a notably feminine figure for a _bodyguard_ sounds pretty unnecessary even for _her._ Well, unless the bodyguard in question had _requested_ it. Then, absolutely, Tasha would totally have done it for her/him. Because gender expression is serious shit – and it _was_ the reason she made the armor that way to begin with.

Of course, by now, everyone already made the connection, because the first thing people think when they add “high tech” to “dubious events” to “considerably dangerous” to “female” is Natasha Stark. 

The fact that the fighting took place on top of her arc reactor certainly… did not help.

Everything broke into chaos then, and afterwards Pepper told her that sleeping with that interviewer was really a _lousy idea_ and Rhodey bickered with her endlessly in the workshop. Tasha pointed out he stole her car, what the fuck, he pointed out she owes him a jet, they went back and forth about the Iron Woman armor, somehow the bickering turned into buddy talk, and then Tasha threw a comment about the plane and the strippers and, wow, that was supposed to be a joke, but it darkened the mood out of a sudden, because then Rhodey asked about Afghanistan and the Arc Reactor and she so didn’t want to go there. 

“No, no, this is _not_ okay. Tasha, listen to me.” He said, and she sat on one of her worktables, crossed her arms and _glared_ , because she wasn’t wearing heels and without them she was his size and couldn’t look properly menacing. “I found you collapsed on the floor, and if you hadn’t had the _lack of time_ to get rid of your old arc-reactor, which we both know you would’ve, I couldn’t have done _anything_ to keep you from dying.”

“You know what, this wouldn’t have happened if you had ever _listened to me.”_ Natasha interrupted, her voice sharp and poisonous. The man pressed his lips together, shuffles uncomfortably in one place and crosses his arms, too.

“What do you mean?” He asked, all army serious and annoyingly _reasonable_.

 _“I mean”_ , snapped Natasha, “that you wouldn’t have had to put it _back_ , if no one had ever taken it _out.”_

Immediately she wished she had kept her mouth shut.

It goes back to her years at MIT, when Tasha had first shared this ill feeling she had about Obadiah. It was nothing she could pinpoint, not one exact thing, but a tightening in her guts when she felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder. It was something the young girl had never shared with anyone; she could never find a way to get it out, to translate feeling into speech. She was never good at the kind of stuff.  
Yet, one day, with just enough alcohol to lose her barriers, but not yet enough to make her incoherent, Natasha had spilled the beans to Rhodey. She had told him of the chill she sometimes got around Obadiah, about how much she hated it when he put his arm around her shoulders, those occasions in which he’d say something that made her blood run thicker with anger and she couldn’t understand _why_. Her friend, however, had given voice to the most _logical_ thoughts in Natasha’s head – that it was probably only her imagination.

As the talk had progressed, Tasha had found herself arguing with increasing heat that it _wasn’t_ her imagination, as if she somehow ought to prove Rhodey wrong, but in the end the most “rational” voices in her head had won over again and the girl had let the issue drop.

She hadn’t called Pepper to help her with the arc reactor because Tasha _had_ delicate hands, so she’d done it herself. That the old prototype was still lying around her workshop was a combination of sheer luck and Dummy’s very poor organizing skills. That Rhodey had reached her house sooner and been there in time to help Tasha put it back had _not_ been sheer luck. 

Yet, she was still throwing this at his face.

-“Never mind who told me. _Show me.”_

“What? What the fuck, Obie, no, I’m not _showing you_ , that thing is crammed right in between my _breasts,_ weren’t you the one who said you had seen me naked on TV to last a lifetime?”  
“Tasha…”

“No, the heck, you can’t see it. It _works.”_ -

Rhodey took a deep breath and Natasha hopped down from the table, walking away, rubbing a hand over the arc reactor. 

“Tasha…”

“Yeah, what?” She replied, a little more sharp than she had intended to, turning back abruptly. 

“You’re right.” Replied the man, approaching slowly, “I didn’t listen to you about Obadiah. I didn’t listen to you about the suit. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

The fight bled right out of Tasha before she realized it, but she still gave her friend a hard look, just to get the point across. “I’m _always_ right.” Pointed out the woman, poking Rhodey on the chest petulantly. That made him laugh.

“Yeah, okay, _Iron Woman_. They’ll be on top of you like hyenas, you know that.”

“They always have been.” she shrugged, picking up a piece of… something, really, anything within easy reach, on a nearby table and tinkering with it. “The suit and I are one, Rhodey. They can’t have it. _I mean it.”_

“I hear you.” He agreed, holding his hands up and leaning next to her on the table, “but Iron Woman? Are you going to go with that?”

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Natasha shrugged, “It’s not really right, but Gold-and-Titanium-Alloy Woman doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, so I think I just might stick with Iron.”


	4. In my Defense, I was Dying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Tasha discusses body horror. That involves alien babies. Those are comic scenes, tho.

Really, you can’t blame a woman for going a bit batshit crazy when she’s _dying. ___

__Also, _Body Horror.  
_  
Now, Tasha would’ve thought she was already a _sage _when it comes to Body Horror. Been there, done that, got the freaking T-Shirt (with a hole on it to fit the arc reactor), thank you very much. Let’s make a recapitulation here:___ _

____Had she been blown up by her own tech? Check._ _ _ _

____Had she gotten surgery performed on her chest in a filthy cave in the middle of nowhere by terrorists? Check._ _ _ _

____Had she gotten a device hooked into a car battery crammed in the middle of her breasts? Check._ _ _ _

____(As a side point, Tasha hates life support. _Hates it. _Why would a sane human being appreciate having a plastic thingy shoved down their noses and into their _throats? _Ew. _Ew _.)_______ _ _ _

__________Had she have to perform a little surgery on your own chest? Check._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________Had she gotten tazed and had the device that kept her from dying a slow, painful death yanked out of her chest? Check._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________By now, Natasha would’ve thought the only thing left to happen to her was getting pregnant with an _alien baby _or some similar shit, because wasn’t that something that Hollywood absolutely _loved? _Every single important female character in fantasy or scyfy series _had _to get a freaky pregnancy at some point or another, and be devoured from the inside out or something equally disgusting. Personally, Natasha didn’t think a _regular _pregnancy was much less gruesome, but there had to be a _line _somewhere, okay. It was bad enough she had to sit through the revenge of mother nature when her uterus decided to _bleed _once a month, she didn’t particularly fancy the idea of giving birth to an alien… baby… thing._____________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________On that subject, maybe Tasha _should _get her uterus removed at some point or another, I mean, it wasn’t like it was of particular _use _, and she could totally do without her period. The woman had considered it on many other points of her life, but one thing or another always made her decide against it: first, getting your uterus removed involved hormonal reposition therapy, and she already had trouble remembering to take her pills, to expect her to actually follow through the entire recovery process was a bit too much._____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________________Second, the whole concept of a surgery was kind of a no-no for Tasha. Being passed out in a room filled with pointy objects and medically knowledgeable people, allowing them to cut you open and stitch you up?  
How about, _no? _____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________________Third, it was a headache to convince USA doctors that she did _not _, in fact, wanted to make babies.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________But mostly, at the end of the day, Natasha didn’t really dislike having a uterus that much. She was probably luckier than most, with very few bad cramps and a generally mild PMS. Most times she couldn’t differentiate between hormone-induced ill temper and the sheer lack of caffeine. Actually, up until, you know The Body Horror and the arc reactor, Tasha was completely at home in her own body._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________But of course the last straw wasn’t an alien baby. Nope. With her luck, the very last Body Horror the universe decided to throw her way was bloody _plutonium poisoning _.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________Let’s get back to our little list._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________The very same device that’s keeping you alive is also killing you? _Check _.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________________________Fuck. Fuckidy _fuck _. The most damned of all _fucks _._____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________Then Justin Hammer is standing there and Natasha is wondering what’ll be his babble of choice this time, what kind of jerk-ass move he’s going to pull to try to look as if he has more than one brain cell – he sees when he scans the officials reunited, briefly makes eye contact with a blonde senator, her hair short and professional, sitting there completely poker-faced, and goes for his next usual approach: bring up Tasha’s father._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________She’s considering if she can get away with banging her head on the table or, perhaps, leaning back on the chair and yelling “BOOOOOOOOOOORING”, but that’s when Rhodey comes in and Tasha’s posture snaps up as she looks back at him. Then her friend starts pointing out the senator’s bullshit and the brunette can even forgive him for calling her “a possible threat”._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________It’s all pointless anyway, because:_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________a) _She’s dying _.  
b) There’s only one person she trusts with the armor other than herself, and the woman already asked JARVIS to run a full-body scan on that person for measurements ages ago, way before Afghanistan. So sue her.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________________Her next move is, of course, handing the company over to Pepper, and the look on her face might just be worth the poisoning, because it’s so hard to make the ginger speechless like that._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________________“Is it because you keep forgetting my birthday?” She asks, blinking like a lost puppy. “You know, most people just buy other people _shoes _and a card when they forget their birthdays.”___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________________________________“Pepper, I’ve bought you enough shoes to fill the Eiffel Tower.” laughs the brunette, grabbing the champagne bottle. “And, really, it’s for me as much as it is for you, you look amazing in heels, have I told you that? Not as good as I do, but still. How many heels do you even have?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________________________________“Last time I counted, about thirty something.” She replied, still a bit dizzy. “Are you _serious?” _____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________________________________“In fact, I am. Take the champagne, Pepper.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________________________________“I don’t know what to think”, she breathes, laughing._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________________________________“Don’t think, drink!” replies Natasha, sitting next to Pepper. And it’s all good for a moment, because this is her best friend, this is Pepper, who takes no bullshit from her and the only one Tasha trusts with both her empire, her personal life and to not poke her in the eye when applying eyeliner. _“So! What’s _going on between you and Happy?”___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________________Natasha never tried to race because, as it turned out, they don’t have a uniform that _fits her _. I mean, what the heck, she doesn’t have _that _big of a pair of breasts, and her ass is, you know, just okay, nothing hourglass-like, but just enough to not be a _plank _, but still, _nothing _. Vanko catches up with her when she returns to the restaurant, and so Tasha has to undergo a real mad race to get the suitcase and the footage of the whole matter comes from security cameras and shaky cellphone recordings instead of top-of-the-line TV cameras._________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________________________Still, it leaks nonetheless, Pepper still refuses to travel with her, and Rhodey comes down to the workshop to talk about them taking the suits. He makes it sound as if they could _actually _control them. First, they’d need to find someone who _fit _inside, because this isn’t a goddamn _leather catsuit _, it’s a highly advanced, extraordinarily complicated and delicate structure that was designed to fit her form _millimetrically _, you can’t simply stuff a random military dude in there and hope nothing will get maimed in the process._________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________________________________Even if they had the good sense to hand it over to a female, it didn’t fix the problem most of the programming of the suit was directly linked to JARVIS, so if they couldn’t understand it and reconfigure it, they were never even going to get it to turn on. Yeah. Like _that _was going to happen.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________________________________________For a moment there, Tasha really thinks about telling Rhodey of the palladium poisoning – he’s looking at her with his “I’m not fooled by your bullshit” expression as she says she has it under control, but before the man can retort, the brunette looks straight at him and whispers “You have to trust me on this.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________________________________________And so Rhodey does._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________________________________________He still finds her completely trashed in the suit, but this time Rhodey doesn’t listen to Pepper saying she’ll handle this, so it’s him who fails to make Tasha end the party and they exchange some nasty words about trust and the old “listen to me” dilemma. Rhodey still takes the suit, and they still try to kick each other’s asses and Tasha knew he wouldn’t go easy on her, the house ends up wrecked, and then – _HURAY _– Natasha puts a needle in her neck.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________________________________________________________And the brunette cannot even _begin _to explain how disturbing it is that they share a name, it’s just, it sounds _wrong _, and maybe she’ll just ignore that piece of information and pretend her name is still Natalie, God, why couldn’t she have been called Antonia or some shit, why did it have to be _Natasha? _This is just so unoriginal, and another thing Tasha would like to take up with her father, just one more thing in an ever-growing list, like, I don’t know, “you founded a super-secret government organization? Did mom know about that?”_______ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________________________________________________The good thing, of course, is that she’s _not _dying anymore, and that’s always a great day for her, you know, when she’s not dying.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________________________________________________________________Then _Pepper _nearly dies – and the woman has the nerve to talk about nearly dying back at Tasha, she’d just saved her _life! _– they discuss, she threatens to resign._____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________________________________________________“You’re my best friend.” Replies Tasha, taking her hand, “I was in a tough spot and you got me through it, so… right?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________________________________________________“Yeah. Thank you… thank you for understanding.” breathes Pepper, the fight going out of her. They half-heartedly throw business talk at each other and then the brunette grabs the woman and kisses her, but halfway through it Pepper starts laughing._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________________________________________________“What?” Natasha steps back, “what is it… weird?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________________________________________________Pepper is still laughing too hard to say anything, but she nods, “yeah, totally weird. Sorry.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________________________________________________________________“Dang. And here I thought I could find the lesbian in you.” retorts Tasha, but she starts laughing too and they laugh until there’s tears coming out of their eyes, and then the ginger snaps her upside the head.  
“Don’t _ever _nearly die and don’t tell me again.” she warns.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________________________________________________________“I’ll have to back her up on that.” interrupts Rhodey, nearly causing Pepper to fall over the edge of the building._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________________________________________________________“You should get lost!”retorts Tasha, keeping her best friend from falling to her death._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________________________________________________________“I was here first!”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________________________________________________________“I’m going down.” announces Pepper, loudly “I’m going to grab a taxi, drink a cup of tea, a bottle of vodka, or something, and sleep until next week.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________________________________________________________________“No, no, wait, I can take you.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________________________________________________________________________________“No more _flying with the suit. Like _ever _.” sighs the woman.“I’ll walk, thank you.”____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________________________________________________________________________“She just doesn’t know what she’s missing.” the brunette tells Rhodey. They laugh it off and exchange buddy talk, you were awesome there, thanks, you too, and then Rhodey steps a bit too close into her personal space and Natasha is glad in the suit they’re both the same height._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________________________________________________________________________“You know what I was thinking?” He says, crossing his arms. “I was too mad to realize that in the party, but our measurements are completely different.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________________________________________________________________________“Not everyone can have a body like mine, sorry about that, Rhodey.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________________________________________________________________________“And your security codes have security codes.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________________________________________________________________________“And your point is…?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________________________________________________________________________They stare at each other, and there’s nothing else to be said: Rhodey has already apologized, they have shrugged it off, that’s it. The silence stretches half a minute too long, turns into frizzling sexual tension, then Rhodey smiles, says he’s going to have to borrow the suit for a while, and, hey, that’s okay, at least she’s not dying anymore._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________________________________________________________________________And no one can say she never took her chances with Pepper._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


	5. Five is a Terrible Age

Tucked in a hidden corner in Tasha’s workshop – and by “hidden”, I mean “buried under a pile of garbage” – there’s a big box titled “DON’T OPEN IT – I’M SERIOUS – RHODEY I’M LOOKING AT YOU – IF I FIND OUT YOU OPENED THIS YOU’RE _DEAD_ – CONFIDENTIAL – PROPRIETY OF NATASHA STARK – TOP SECRET – DON’T MESS WITH THIS – YOU’LL DIE A SLOW DEAD DEVOURED BY SLUGS”.

Of course, no one who has known Tasha for long enough would have any second thoughts about disregarding those warnings. And that’s why she took the precaution of covering it with highly dubious half-finished prototypes and things that may or may not bite to discourage people from even getting close.

There are somethings that better belong in the past. And Natasha Stark’s childhood mementos fall into that category. 

Wrapped in bubble-wrap at a little corner of the box is a little device she’d designed for Jarvis, who always had trouble chopping onions without getting teary-eyed, but didn’t want to go to the trouble of using the mixer. She could’ve gotten him a clothes peg, but that felt too mainstream for Natasha, so instead she built him a sphere-bubble-kind-of-thingy so he could put the onions inside and cut them without having to smell them.

Right next to it, in plain brown paper, rest the remains of the first bot she ever blew up, and then absolutely refused to admit having cried over. They’re stocked neatly on top of many schematics that would give birth to many others explosions, but also many successes. And behind them, there’s a notebook filled with her first attempts at programing an AI that had eventually given birth to Dummy. And doodles.

Quietly hiding beneath it, there’s small stack of hair-styles magazines that she’ll burn in hell before admitting being obsessed over in her teenager years. Well, so shoot her if she was a genius with braiding as well. It’s all about logic and 3-D vision! Really not that complicated. 

And then there were the cars magazines, about fifteen different _scientific_ magazines, and the playboy editions she was equally obsessed over, but those are a different matter altogether.  
The picture albums are the most embarrassing, though, by far. 

The first pages of a yellowing card-paper album stars pictures of Tasha in the bath playing boat with a helmet, taken by one of her nannies. There’s the time when she tried to chop off her fringe because it was bothering her and ended up with no fringe at all, and _really_ weird-looking. There’s the first advanced calculations she ever did. The impression of her hands in ink, growing from chubby baby fingers to the age of seven when she’d refused to do it anymore. 

But most of all, embarrassing evidence is grinning up at her immediately as soon as she blows the dust off a blue album with the sugary title “Best Moments”. Jarvis had _actually_ put a picture of her five-year-old self on the cover, protected by a plastic layer. The picture happens to be of Natasha on her USO girl fantasy, grinning widely under a Captain America helmet and a replica shield twice her size. She remembers visiting the fantasy shop and being utterly torn between Captain America’s and the USO girl’s fantasy. For once, her indecision had been so sincere and anguished that Jarvis had relented and bought _both_ the USO girl uniform and the optional helmet/shield set. Unfortunately, they hadn’t her shield size anymore, and so Tasha had dragged it along like a sled down the street to trick-or-treat, happily declaring to grown-ups that she was “Captainess America!”

The only reason the woman has never thrown the albums away is because every time she thinks of Jarvis telling her to smile to the camera, actually going to the trouble of developing it, buying the album and placing the picture on its cover – when she thinks of the old butler sitting at his small desk picking photos to put up on its pages… well, the brunette thinks it’d be a shame to waste so much hard work.

So Tasha puts them back carefully at the bottom of the box, closes it, covers it up, and goes back to the Iron Woman.


	6. I’m a Woman! Hear me Smash!

One of Tasha’s secret pleasures is checking out geeky stuff on the internet. Of course, she’s a geek herself, so what would you expect? After all, as one very brilliant writer once said: A scientist has a giant mass of robotic vacuum cleaners that he can sic on his enemies. A geek gives them the _ability to fly.¹_

Actually, she’s pretty sure the line was about villains and supper villains, but whatever, it works, and it’s funny, so Tasha is going to go with that.

The brunette’s latest favorite is _A Very Potter Musical_ , and one day where she’s tired of people’s bullshit and has to wait for a new alloy she’s experimenting with to cool naturally, Tasha sits on her couch with her legs up in the back and her head upside-down hanging from its edge and decides to catch up on the Sequel she hadn’t watched yet. Then Joe Walker comes in the screen and she has a fit of uncontrollable laughter, and every time she tries to stop she looks at him and starts bawling all over again until she loses her balance and falls to the floor.

Dang, he looks better on that pink dress than half the female anchors Tasha knows.

At some point throughout it, the woman decides she absolutely _must_ find a way to use “You have to be stronger than a man! You have to a _WOMAN!”_ in everyday conversation.  
Here’s the deal: there are some things Natasha _loves_ about having being born a woman. Lots of those are important, worthy writing a serious essay about, like knowing she’ll never become her father, and having learned from a very young age not to put up with other people’s bullshit. 

Other stuff, however, don’t have to be that complicated; after all Natasha Stark is not _only_ a woman, but she still is a woman, and has learned to take a good advice once received to the letter. Is okay to simply enjoy being feminine. 

Her hair is a particular little passion – the brunette’s gone through a brief phase in which she took to heart the Hundred Strokes rule, until she researched actually hair structure and found out that was bull. She never squirmed when her nannies tried to wash it, and sat patiently during hairdresser’s appointments – no wonder the ladies at the saloon had such a higher opinion of the young girl than anyone else she knew. To this day she’s probably more patient with an entire day of hair care than she is with five minutes of a board meeting (they’re a bunch of idiots, what can she do?).

Natasha is an old red carpet darling when it comes to impressive hairstyles. 

No, Pepper and she do not braid each other’s hair (Pepper sucks at braiding anyway).

There was nothing actually important to it, really, Tasha simply _really likes_ her hair. After all, it’s raven dark, full and smooth, going back and forth between wavy and curly. It falls to the middle of her back when she lets it loose and ever since the engineer gave up wearing a fringe, it frames her face nicely. What’s there _not_ to love?

She wonders if it would’ve been the same had she been born a man. Would she have long hair, too? Well, no, shit, she would so not be going there, that stuff is for hippies. Well, maybe a _beard_. Wow, fuck, Tasha would totally grow a beard. A _goatee_ , actually, one that was very old-fashioned-megalomaniacal-villain, just for the heck of it. And then when something blew up, she could stroke her goatee, smile diabolically at Pepper and tell her everything was going accordingly to the plan. 

Heh.

The second thing Natasha loves the most is a tie between red lipstick and heels. She really can’t choose because they both make her feel fucking fabulous. She’s been on heels almost as long as she’s been able to walk, and as far as she sees it any lipstick that isn’t red isn’t worth getting your mouth sticky for. 

A striking good taste for heels and an admirable capacity of stomping confidently on them were one of the first things Tasha noticed about Pepper, and is still, possibly, one of the sexiest things about her. They have had some good idiotic times together going through catalogues and grading different shoes from scales that go from “ankle-breaker” to “walking on clouds” and from “Hammer Industries Quality” to “Stark Industries Quality” (although Pepper always rolls her eyes at this) and their favorite: “belong in hell” to “would wear them in bed”.

They just do wonderful things for a person’s ankles.

“I cannot _believe_ they made Iron Woman themed heels”, breathes Pepper. They are sitting side-by-side on the couch, upside-down (that’s Tasha’s favorite position, and it allows for a much better appreciation of shoes), “but somehow I can easily believe you’d actually _buy them_ for me.” She’d arched one eyebrow, amused, at her best friend.

“Well, I don’t _need_ them, Pepper, I have the entire suit, why would I need _heels?”_ Smiles the brunette, tipping back the bottle of champagne and passing it to the ginger. Every once in a while their nights end up like this: sprawled on the couch drinking alcohol from the bottle and eating expensive chocolate. 

“I’d tell you’re an egocentric, spoiled rich brat, but… those are some real nice shoes.”

Pepper drinks her sip of the bottle and Natasha smiles. She doesn’t really need high heels, you know, being she’s a tall woman – taller than Pepper, and the same average height of most men. On heels, however, _she’s taller than almost everyone else_ , and isn’t that simply awesome? 

However, red lipstick is equally awesome. It’s no secret that Tasha loves the color red – kind of hard to miss – and putting on lipstick it’s the difference between being too hang over to care and being ready to get up. It’s the difference between “BOOOOOOORED” and “I’m here to kick your asses”. Tasha had seen Justin Hammer twitching in his seat when she grabbed her mirror off her purse and fixed her lipstick – then proceeded to hack into confidential footage.

 _You got that right, fuck-ass_ , thought the woman, smiling amused.

Plus, it makes her look ten times better, or at least Tasha thinks so. She has a strong, angular face, not one to be the princess in fairytales, but maybe the knight who’s there to look astonishingly beautiful while she hacks through the enemies. Red clashes greatly with her tanned skin and dark eyes, and, despite Pepper’s mean suggestion she has wild eyebrows – which, okay, maybe she does _a little_ – they’re a nice match to the other lines of her face. 

And you’d be surprised at what a good lipstick can do in terms of blowing kisses at parties. Great way of getting someone’s attention.

Other things, of course, equally suck about being a woman. _Really_ suck, like sexism and menstrual cramps. And there are others who are simply _annoying_.

The top list was _skirts, eyeliner_ and _shaving_. 

Tasha can never be grateful enough for being rich and having been able to afford a laser treatment that killed all those little bastards. Otherwise, she might not have had the will. Why do human beings’ legs have to be so _hairy?_ Stupid evolution hadn’t quite caught up to modern times.

But oh, _how dearly_ she hates skirts. When she was five, they still had some appeal to her, but by the time she was seven, her USO girl uniform was definitely put to rest and Jarvis never again managed to wriggle her into a shirt. They’re just… pompous little killjoys. You can do _nothing_ on a shirt. You have to sit right, move right, and pay attention at all times, otherwise you’ll get seven year old moronic boys singing “I saw your panties” The long, flowy ones are a waste of cloth as far as Tasha is concerned, and the shorter ones are a pain in the ass. She makes an exception for formal dresses because no one ever tries to pretend those are _practical_ , they are there only to be pretty, but, hey, at least they are honest about it!

And eyeliner is modern torture. You will never convince her otherwise.

When Tasha is watching _A Very Potter Sequel_ and Dumbledore confuses Umbridge for a man, those things briefly cross her mind, but in the end the kids summarize it best of all.

“And to get ahead, you have to be _stronger_ than a man!” Bellows Joe Walker, surprisingly convincing in a blonde wig and fake French manicure, “You gotta be… a _Woman!_ I’m Woman! Hear me… _SMASH!”_

As Natasha snorts with laughter, her belly hurting already, she swears to herself she’ll fund the next Starkid Musical, because this bunch is simply priceless, but she also feels pleasantly smug.

And if Pepper shoots her a _nasty_ look when Natasha _finally_ gets to use that line in real life, well, it’s not her fault if it just so happens to be so accurate!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This is Scifigrl47’s quote from her amazing series In Which Tony Stark Builds Himself Some Friends (But His Family Was Assigned by Nick Fury), also known as the Toastverse. If you haven't read it, your life isn't complete.


	7. I'm not a Soldier

Tasha wonders, for about half a second, what would happen if this man in front of her ever found out she has a picture album hidden away in her home that pictures a photo of her with a huge Captain America shield. She wonders. Then she immediately drowns the thought violently, because her big infatuation with Captain America died years ago, and she has no more time for this idiot telling her how to behave.  
Natasha hates Steve Rogers, and she has only met him.

She’s had to save his start-spangled ass from Loki, then deal with _another_ asgardian god and she’s so not in the mood to deal with his righteous crap – can’t he see she’s _busy_ doing grown-up work and hopefully making Bruce feel a bit less like a freak, since everyone keeps treating him like an equally fragile and dangerous land mine? 

Everything escalates into utter chaos, everyone is yelling at each other, and Steve is all up on Tasha’s face _because she was fucking trying to stand up for someone_.

“Big girl in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?” Snarls the blonde, and her blood boils in her veins as it has always done when people called her that, it tinges her vision red before she can process the deeper meaning of his bullshit, before she can dwell on the fact Rogers is essentially calling her a coward cowering behind her suit. 

“Little boy with smart friends. Take that off, what are you?” Snarks back Tasha, stomping her way closer to him, but he doesn’t even flinch “everything _special_ about you came out of a _bottle_ , Rogers. You were only ever worth a damn to the war because _other people_ researched, and worked, and put _their_ lives on the line to make the Super Soldier Serum. Meanwhile, _I_ made my way out of a _cave_ with nothing but my brain and a box of scraps. _I_ made _myself_ a heroine. _You_ were _made_ out of a _science project.”_

Steve snickers at her face, his lips twisting into this half-smile that has Tasha gritting her teeth. “A heroine? You?” He whispers, “You are pretending at being a heroine. I’ve seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the girl to make the sacrifice play. To lie down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

“I think I’d just _cut_ the wire”, replies the brunette, because the haze of anger is starting to fall apart, and without it, the words cut much deeper, and it gets harder to find the acid to reply, to cut back at Rogers, to make him _shut up_. 

“Always a way out”, murmurs the blonde, the ever-present little sarcastic smile still there. “You know, you pretend to be this great, important genius heroine, but I’ve known women with half the opportunities you had who were worth _ten_ of you.”

“Like agent Carter, I assume?”

The temperature in the room drops several degrees, and Natasha _knows_ she’s hit a nerve, can see it on the way his face freezes and hardens and falls, she hates herself for bringing Peggy up, but at the moment she hates Rogers more and if she doesn’t find a way to _shut him up_ , the woman’s afraid he’ll find his way down to her darkest secrets and twist them until they bleed anew. 

“You know _nothing_ of Peggy.” Growls Rogers, hands curling into fists and Tasha hates him, _hates him_ , cause he’s right, she isn’t a heroine, he’s _right_ and Natasha has to get him to _shut up_.

“You know nothing of _me_ ”, she replies, cold, sharp and poisonous.

“Let’s find out”, replies the Super Soldier. “Put on the suit. Let’s go a few rounds.”

Thor steps in and the brunette can take half a step back, breathing in as she’s forgotten to do that for the last minute.

Then everything blows up. 

Their eyes cross when they’re knocked on the floor, and the tension, the ever-growing mutual disgust fades like mist, because, _wow, shit is blowing up, let’s get back at this later_.

“Put on the suit”, repeats Rogers, and is as if he’s not even the same person.

“Yeah”, breathes Tasha, and they scramble to get up, knocking into walls and running for it.

His hands are briefly on her waist helping her up, but she doesn’t realize it until much later.

The next hour or so is a madness of stuff blowing up, guns being fired and giant turbines nearly crushing her suit with her inside of it. 

Natasha still leaves Nick Fury’s little meeting, but she’s not as subtle about it as Tony was. Her teeth grind together tighter with every word he says, and when the man mutters the word “heroes” she has had _enough_. She has had enough of their stupid, _meaningless_ worship of all this hero crap. She has had enough of Rogers and his pathetic sacrifice play, as if it’s somehow noble and dignifying having to _die_ instead of getting up the next day and keep fighting, as if it’s somehow smarter or better dramatically throwing yourself in front of someone instead of simply _pulling the person back out of the way_. Is it that hard a concept to grasp?

As if it _matters_ that Phill died believing in heroes, or in god, or in a freaking alien chicken that bakes cookies on Venus, _when he still died_.

He’s dead and Fury will not spin this crap on top of her, not when she knows damn well that Phill always kept his Captain America cards safely tucked inside a zipblock bag. What kind of _monkey_ would let old, delicate, valuable cards out in the open and inside their _working clothes?_ Their motherfucking _SHIELD_ working clothes! And if we are at that, for the love of all the shit that blew up in this goddamn place, what kind of _idiot_ Fury thinks she is? Doesn’t he recon Tasha knows the most basic chemistry? Blood _fucking dries off_ , okay. It doesn’t smear glass table tops long after it should have turned to rusty brown. _For fuck’s sake_.

“This is _bullshit._ ” She growls, and stomps out on them.

Rogers finds her with her arms crossed over her chest working calculations madly, as her brain is prone to do when she gets pissed. His anger has leaked out of him, his voice is lower and paler, like parchment, and he looks worse for wear, his posture fallen, but opener, more approachable, and Tasha can’t decide if he’s doing it on purpose. 

“Was he married?” He asks, simply, short, direct. For a moment, she wonders why did he decide to engage in conversation like this – why not _have you known him for long?_ Why not _he had a family?_ Why asking for a wife?

Is he still thinking of Peggy?

“No”, retorts Tasha, before her brain even consciously decides to answer, “there was a… cellist.” She lets her arms drop, rubbing her temples “I think.”

“Sorry”, replies the blonde, “he seemed like a good man.”

“He was an idiot”, shots back Natasha, turning towards him.

“Why?” Rogers looks completely incredulous, “for believing?”

“Believing in _what?_ ” Answers the brunette, “in Fury? In _us?_ Very unlikely. Maybe in _you_ , Rogers” She gestures at him vaguely, letting a hand fall on her hip and looking anywhere but at him, “but believing saves no one. In fact, believing got him _killed_ , and I’m supposed to think it was a far trade?” Tasha doesn’t know when she started walking up to him, but now Rogers mimics her and approaches. “He was an idiot.”

“He didn’t get killed because he believed”, replies the blonde, stopping in front of her “he was killed because he was trying to do something about it.”

“Something _stupid_ about it!” She pulls of her hair tie angrily and starts to put it back on tightly, passing by the man “he should’ve _waited_. Loki was way out of his league.”

“Sometimes you have to do what you can, Tasha.”

“Yeah, at the cost of his life! Because I damn well know Fury doesn’t care about that, not as long as he gets things his way. He’s _lying_ ” she turns around sharply to face Rogers again. “And I’m not his _soldier_ to tinker with.”

“Me _neither_ ”, replies Steve, and his voice is a tad bit more forceful than his slow, low tone up until now, his eyes tighter and greyer “he has the same blood in his hands Loki does. But right now we gotta put that behind us _and get this done._ ” 

Tasha breathes in and out and pulls her ponytail with a tad too much violence to tighten it. But her head is back in the game, Loki wants to fuck with her tower, and so she’s out to suit up and luckily kick his ass.  
Tasha still tries to call Pepper, because she’s her best friend, and Rhodey is out in some ungodly country somewhere, definitely out of reach.

Is not until she’s back on the floor and waking up startled, out of breath, looking into a soot-covered familiar face that, for no particular reason, Natasha realizes he had called her “Tasha”.

“Did anyone try to kiss me?” She asks, looking around, _“no one?_ Really?” She falls back, the air leaving her lungs, “well, that’s disappointing.”

Steve laughs, and if Natasha wasn’t possibly nursing a concussion and ravishingly hungry, she might have noticed the way he dropped his eyes, or the way he was leaning towards her, or the sudden jump of his shoulders when she woke up, and she might teased him over it, but as it was, it went over her head.

It’s such a good day when she’s not dying.


	8. On Shared Names and LGBT Rights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the thing, guys: I'm being beta-ed by Scott, whom I met through tumblr and who has been revising the chapters. However, Scott's been real busy, so I'll be posting the unbeta-ed chapters and re-posting them as Scott gets there. Please bear with me. I'll be posting 'till chapter 14 so I can catch up with the chapters posted on Tumblr, and then I plan to update once a week (here, mostly, and there if I remember it).
> 
> Thank you so much and sorry for the lack of update. 
> 
> WARNINGS: discussion of character's "death".

Tasha is still more or less completely weirded out that her teammate shares a name with her. 

She doesn’t know why it bothers her, it just… _does_. Not to mention the unavoidable confusion whenever someone says “Natasha”: Which one? Stark or Romanoff? The one that kills people with her eyes or the one that blows shit up? It is a _pain in the ass_. That’s why the brunette has decided, because the situation is getting ridiculous already, that she is to be “Tasha” (no one ever really calls her any other way) and her teammate is “Nat”. 

Ever since then, Tasha has made a point to throw “Nat” everywhere in her sentences while talking to the agent, and Nat has made a point to threaten her with increasingly gruesome murdering scenarios. The whole thing usually ended up with Nat twisting Tasha’s fingers in a particularly painful way and the genius yelling “I NEED THESE FINGERS TO WORK!”

“I know you like me!” Would call out the brunette, making hilarious faces at her poor hand. 

Eventually, “Nat” stuck, they stopped performing their little scene, and no one ever actually needed to say that it’s true Nat likes Tasha. Just as it’s true that Tasha likes her back. I mean, _she did_ open her house to the most skilled spy assassin in the world, if that’s not a declaration of love, _nothing_ is. 

Except, there are a lot of ways to declare one’s love.

Clint’s way might be one of Tasha’s favorites, simply because it’s both golden material to tease him over and it all came from the fact that Coulson did not, in fact, _die_.

Everything started when, for some reason or another, they were all summoned to the helicarrier. It was the first time Tasha saw Nat, Clint, Thor and Steve after the whole Loki drama (she maintained contact with Bruce). The woman walked into a waiting room, talking in the phone while texting and trying to get her hair out of the way.

“No, Rhodey, I can’t talk right now, I have to go, I’m entering a very high-security place, Fury’s gonna have my metaphorical balls if I let you hear confidential secrets through the phone, _oops_ , losing my connection, buh-bye!”

 _“TASHA…!”_ Called Rhodey, frustrated, before the woman hang up on him.

“Hey there, fellows!” Greeted Tasha, turning her cellphone off and finally managing to deal with her hair, “Capsicle!” She beamed, spotting Steve sitting cross legged, very prim and proper distracting himself with a magazine. “Long time no see! It’s good to see you are back from your loner voyage to find yourself.”

Steve raised his head and smiled – his large, boy-scout grin that made him look like a huge golden retriever puppy. “Hey, Tasha”, he greeted, softly “it’s good to see you again.”

“Huh”, the woman pushed her sunglasses up her forehead and sat unceremoniously next to the blonde soldier, “you really do mean it, don’t you?” She asked, poking him in the cheek.

“Of course I- why are you poking me?” He asked, baffled, as she kept doing it.

“Trying to find out if you’re some kind of bizarre mutant cross between a Care Bear and Aslan.”

“Between what and… what? Stop that!” A brief ridiculous scene followed, where Steve tried to get her hands off him and she dodged him insistently, before laughing.

“That’s pop culture, Cap. Don’t worry. You’ll catch up.” Tasha clapped him in the shoulder. “So! Does anyone know why dear ol’ Nick and his eye patch filled with secrets called us here? Is another alien race trying to blow up Manhattan?” 

“Not that I know of”, replied Bruce, leaving his spot by the coffee machine and sitting at Tasha’s other side. The guy looked positively better than when they found him hiding in the wild, with a new wardrobe (provided by Tasha under many protests she unceremoniously ignored) and lighter circles under his eyes. “I was told they had to debrief us over some ‘unexpected turn of events’”, Bruce discreetly air-quoted the words.

“Has Thor’s psycho brother gone on the loose?” Inquired the brunette, raising one eyebrow. 

“Thor is in the other room with Doctor Foster”, replied Steve, indicating the door, “he says nothing unusual has happened on his side.”

“Hummm”, mumbled Tasha, crossing her arms.

The woman had a striking feeling she knew what this was about, but, surprisingly, Tasha stayed quiet as Furry appeared to guide them into another room, all the awhile spinning his mysterious crap.  
“I KNEW IT.” Yelled Tasha, as soon as she stepped inside. “I. _KNEW_ IT. SUCK IT, _FUCKERS!_ I _knew_ he wouldn’t leave his cards out of their zipblock! FUCK YOU, FURY AND YOUR FAKE TOO-FRESH BLOOD.”

“Tasha, what in the hell are you-“ begun Steve, impatient, pushing through her to get in and promptly freezing in shock.

“I _knew_ you weren’t dead, your motherfucker!” Exclaimed the brunette, still busy doing her impromptu “I win, you suck” faces.

“It’s refreshing to know my death made such an impact on you, Miss Stark”, replied Coulson, deadpan.

Natasha and Clint were flanking Phill throughout the whole thing, even when Tasha convinced everyone to go out and do something other than be stuffed in shady SHIELD facilities. There was a serious amount of bickering on regards to where they would go, until it was decided bowling, where the brunette kicked everyone’s asses and talked Steve through Narnia and 90’s kids cartoons. Jane tried to teach Thor how to bowl leading to Clint and Tasha losing their breath from laughter and Nat cracking a smile. Coulson, all throughout it incredibly dead-pan and unbothered, proved to be quite proficient in bowling, to which Clint muttered “he’s good at _everything,_ ” and Bruce calmly kept everyone’s scores and discussed portals with Jane.

“Do you think Clint is looking a bit… tense?” Whispered Steve at some point, leaning across the table towards Tasha. The brunette finished eating her slice of pizza and shot a look at their archer. He was sitting next to Coulson, but notably leaning away from him.

“Yeah,” agreed the woman, “why?”

“Do you think he might be unconformable with us?” asked the blonde, uneasy, “because of the whole mind-control thing?”

“What? No, no, no, no, no, _no,_ ” disagreed Tasha through a mouthful of cheese, leaning back towards Steve, “see,” she said, licking her lips, “that’s just sexual tension.”

 _“What?”_ Replies Steve and the confusion in his face is adorable. The woman laughs.

“Has anyone given you the LGBT talk yet?”

“Hum… no?”

“Let me put it like this. How do you feel about gay people?”

“Ahm…” the blonde blinks, “nothing… particularly? I think that if everyone is happy and consenting it really isn’t any of my business.”

“Great,” Tasha smiles largely at him and throws an arm around his shoulders. “This is what you should know: Clint, much like myself, is bisexual, Coulson is gay, and then there’s this painfully obvious one-sided pinning on Clint’s part that they probably haven’t talked about.”

“How… how do you know that?” Inquires Steve. He is looking at Tasha dubiously, trying to fit all information together, wondering how trust-worthy his source is exactly, but not for a moment he seems bothered by the idea that the man who designed him a skin-tight uniform is gay, and Tasha likes him a little better for it. “Wait, and didn’t you say Phill had a cellist?” He remembers, suddenly, raising his eyebrows.  
Natasha gulps down her drink. “Hum, yeah. His name was Harry something.” Muses Tasha, smiling as Steve blinks, his month forming a small “o”, as if his brain is only now informing him “cellist” is a unisex word. “Besides, Clint was checking out Coulson’s ass earlier.” She adds, shrugging. Steve seems to take her word for it.

Further down the night, when they have moved from the bowling to the newly built Avengers Towers and Tasha is touring them around quite drunk already, they realize Coulson and Clint have gone missing and backtrack looking for them.

If asked, Tasha and Nat will shamelessly admit they were eavesdropping, Steve will stammer and apologize, Bruce will look properly ashamed and apologize and Thor really has no idea it wasn’t polite to begin with.

“I’m not cornering you”, said Coulson, every bit as composed as always, while Clint leaned aggressively against the other corridor wall.

“Sure sounds a goddamn lot like cornering to me.” Replies the archer, defensive, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m only asking a question”, disagrees Phill.

“And you felt the need to get away from everyone else to ask me that question because…?” Points out the other man, ironically.

“Because you’ve been avoiding me ever since you found out I wasn’t dead”, Clint scoffs, but Phill isn’t bothered by it, “and I’d like to know why.”

The archer shrugged. “Because.”

“I’m sure there’s a reason.”

“I say there isn’t.” The man shuffled in place, “why are you even bothering yourself with this? You’re not my handler anymore. It’s been some time, actually, ever since you were my handler. So why do you _care?”_

“That is not fair”, states Phill, and by then Tasha was silently freaking out at Coulson’s robotic capacity of keeping his calm, Nat was rolling her eyes, Thor was confused, Steve had this worried expression and Bruce was trying to decide whether or not to run before the two men found them squished together by the corridor’s corner. “Before this whole mess, I considered us friends.”

 _“Right”_ , sneers Clint, and Tasha shots a curious look at Nat – is Coulson that completely _clueless?_ Nat shakes her head, and rolls her eyes at her friend. It seems Clint is better of an actor than he first let on. Except now his defenses are obviously crumbling. 

“Is it because of Loki?” Asks Phill, and there’s a slight change in his posture, as if he’s getting closer to understanding, but can’t quite put his finger on it.

“Loki.” Repeats Clint, dry and tense. 

“Yes”, answers Coulson, stepping closer, “you know it wasn’t your fa—“

Whatever was next on Phill’s speech was promptly lost when Clint sprung forward, an arm tackling the other man by the shoulders, his other hand grabbing the back of his neck, and suddenly the archer was kissing his ex-handler madly.

Steve’s jaw fell, Tasha made a little “WOOOOOOOH” soundless encouragement, Nat looked as pleased as she ever gets, Thor looked happy for them and Bruce had a mild surprised expression on.  
“I thought you had died”, chocked Clint, grabbing the man’s waist until his knuckles went white, “I was going to ask you out, had been waiting for our schedules to coincide, but then Loki showed up and I thought you had _died_ , and I never got the chance…” his breath was uneven, his eyes darting back and forth between Phill’s eyes and lips. “I never got the chance… _Gosh_ , I was _trying_ not to go into a weepy love confession here, but it got so fucking _hard_ when I found out you _weren’t_ dead.”

“Then shut up”, growled Phill, twisting Clint around and pressing him against the wall.

By then Steve dragged them all away claiming it was “personal!”, but he forgot Tasha has footage on every corridor of the mansion. 

And, because Tasha and Clint rapidly became best buddies, bounding over recklessly, things that blow up, sex innuendos, practical pranks and Shit People Say about Bisexuals, the archer never saw the end of it.


	9. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter

“Tasha!” Called Steve, carefully entering her workshop. He picked his way around mindfully avoiding stepping on anything. “Tasha, you here?” The blonde looked around carefully, “Ta…”

“Yeah?”

Steve’s scream was nearly as funny as the fact he tripped over a tire and fell spectacularly on his butt.

Tasha cracked into breathless laughing.

“NOT FUNNY!” Screamed Steve, once his stream of blasphemous imprecations died off. It seemed even Captain America had his potty mouth moments. “What are you doing up there?!”

The brunette was laughing too hard to answer, so she only waved sluggishly at Steve. It took about fifteen minutes between Steve blushing and saying it wasn’t funny and Tasha trying to stop laughing before she could answer.

“I was grabbing some stuff”, the woman replied, still flushed and lazy from so much laughter, “here, take those.” She handed Steve a weird assessment of tubes and joints, then climbed down from the shelf. “I wasn’t even trying to scare you”, admitted the brunette, smiling widely. “Priceless!”

“Having a disembodied voice talking above my head is a bit startling”, replied Steve, deadpan.

“You do have a sense of humor”, approved Tasha, taking the stuff from his arms and walking to a workbench, “what can I do for ya, Cap?”

“Ah, well, I can see you’re busy”, replied the man, giving a short look at the foreign objects and backing up a step, gesturing to the door, “so maybe I should…”

“No, no, no, I have time. I have nothing _but_ time. I’m the Empress of Time. Go on. Shoot.”

Steve laughed, amused, and hoped on a stool. “All right”, he agreed, and then hesitated, biting his lips. It was a bit distracting, really. Why did Steve lower lip have to be so much meatier than his upper lip? It just brought all kind of inappropriate dirty thoughts to her mind. “I wanted to apologize.”

“For?” Asked Tasha, sitting on the table next to Steve, trying to distract herself from his lips. It was really hard.

“For… what I said at the helicarrier.” Proceeded the blonde, and the brunette’s attention snapped up towards his eyes again. Suddenly, she was so _not_ okay with this talk.

“Oh”, she breathed, non-committing, hoping down the worktable.

“Yeah, I…” Steve turned towards her as the woman walks away, trying to find something that woll make her look busy, “I wanted to apologize for the way I acted and the… stuff I said. I was wrong.”  
“Hum”, muttered Tasha, growing increasingly uncomfortable.

“I shouldn’t have lashed out on you”, proceeded the blonde. His voice had assumed that serious, straight-forward tone, the honesty of it just screaming _Steve_ , and although she couldn’t see it, she could imagine his perfectly straight posture on that high stool. “And what I said about you pretending at being a heroine, I was wrong about that. I was wrong about _you._ ”

“Umhum.”

There was a longer pause. “Tasha.”

“I’m listening”, retorted the brunette, without turning back.

“Not really, you are not”, pointed out Steve, circling her to meet face-to-face again. Steve was one of the few people who were taller than her and Tasha wished ardently she were on her heels – of course, she didn’t wear them on the workshop, that’d be simply stupid, but the comfortable pair of snickers did nothing for her height and how she _hated_ having to look up at the blonde. “You don’t believe me.”

“I thought we had already had an argument about believing” she tried to joke, tossing her bangs back, but the man wasn’t fooled.

“I was _wrong_ when I said those things about you”, he wenton, all proper, meaning and _sentimental,_ “you _are_ a heroine, Tasha, and I’m really proud of working with you. In fact, you’re probably… one of the most extraordinary women I ever met.”

“Well, of course I am” replied Tasha, petulant, because she had no idea whatsoever of what to respond to that. “I’m Natasha Stark.”

“That’s not what I mean”, disagreed Steve, but when the brunette’s eyebrow shot up in confusion, he didn’t go on with the subject. Instead he just smiled, shook his head and changed direction. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’d like us to be friends, too, not only teammates.”

“Is that so.” Replied Tasha, because, again, she really couldn’t find anything more interesting to say. She shuffled uneasily, “well, yeah, friends. Sure, why not. We could be friends”, the woman shrugged, “we have managed not to cut off each other’s head so far, right? That sounds like a good beginning to me. Always a good day when no one is dying, I think. Got off on the right foot and all that… stuff.” Her hands gesticulated wildly without her consent. “Besides, I said some… some pretty nasty stuff in there myself, that wasn’t very good, was it? Nope, but, hey, we didn’t kill each other because of that, so that sounds awesome to me.” She patted Steve’s arms and wow, muscles, now that was just unfair to a girl, but this was as much of an apologize as she was capable of mustering. “Sorry, Capsicle. I mean, thanks! Thanks.”

Steve laughed lowly, and offered his hand for Tasha to shake, “I do think we got off on the right foot. As soon as we started working together we managed to save the world, remember?”

“Point taken”, chuckled Tasha, shaking his hand.

“Great”, said Steve, and bit his lip, as if there was something else scratching at his throat. Tasha shuffled back towards her workbench awkwardly, not sure what to say anymore, “so, hum… could I ask you something? Since we are friends?”

“You already have, but okay, sure Cap, ask away”, answered the brunette, praying this wasn’t another awkward, feelings-related question.

“How did you know about… about Peggy?” He whispered, and great, what with Tasha’s rotten luck. She should know this would happen: Steve’s loss was still evident in his face, his longing yet raw, and of course he’d look for anything that was left of his past. Tasha could be grateful someone tipped him on the whole “Howard turned into a jerk” history, but Peggy was different, and she had brought her up, so of course she should’ve expected Steve would ask.

“Hum, well, you know, that was probably… not a good idea, bringing aunt Peggy up, really, it was just a horrible idea, let’s just forget…”

 _“Aunt_ Peggy?”

Inside, Tasha was banging her head against the wall very hard. Oh my God, for one of the greatest minds of the century, she certainly was a bloody idiot. Stupid rag mouth! Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Steve looked so eager and a bit lost, and it was hard to concentrate when he was so painfully expectant. For the first time, Tasha took in his appearance other than “good Lord, right out of the ice, all right”. Steve did look as if he’d just been unfrozen, shrunken in his own body, still sporting clothes from more than half a century ago, his hair carefully parted, and his posture much too proper – but she knew the blue eyes, the set of his jaw, and could recognize bits of all her girl version loved about Captain America.

 _They aren’t really two separate people, are they?,_ she thought, _not anymore than me and my suit._

“Ahm… yeah.” Ah, what the hell, in for an egg, in for a chicken, right? “That’s what I called her, anyway. You know what, just… just stay here. No, here. Stay. Don’t move. Don’t breathe, count how long you can hold your breath or… something. Dummy, come here, play with Steve a bit. Just distract him, okay? Don’t look at what I’m doing or I’ll be forced to do horrible things to you. Just… wait here.”

Tasha took some tentative steps to make sure Steve really wasn’t going to look, then headed for a pile of unidentified objects and started digging through, using a familiar path that didn’t send anything tumbling down the pile or on top of her. It took some fumbling around until the brunette found what she was looking for, but thankfully her memory hadn’t failed her – she wasn’t using the stupid helmet.

As she turned around, carefully putting everything back, she spotted Steve surround by her bots, seeming engaged in conversation as various beeps respond to his questions.

“So, you’re Dum-E, and you are U”, said Steve, completely distracted, shaking hands with his robots, and nodding as he acknowledged each of them. “Tasha gives you the strangest names, you know”, he confided, leaning in conspiratorially, “my name is Steve, some people call me Cap, too, if you prefer that”. The blonde smiled and petted Dummy absently, “she designed you two? That’s cool. I bet you can do all sorts of stuff, right, Dummy? Are you an A.I., too, like JARVIS? But you can’t talk like him? Well, that’s okay, boy. I got a little spooked myself when JARVIS spoke with me for the first time, so it’s nice to meet an A.I. whom I can actually see, but don’t tell him, he’s been really helpful ever since I moved in. You know you have great wells over there? It’s good to meet you. Hey, what’s that?” U had returned, shaking a blender cup at Steve, “is that for me?” He smiled, accepting the blender, and shook hands with the bot, again, “thank you. You are all very welcoming.”

“Okay, bonding time is over, go work”, interrupted Tasha, patting her bots as she passed them, “go, go work, Steve lives here, you’ll see him again, scatter. Don’t drink that.”  
“Why not?” He blinked, looking at the blender cup.

“It’s okay, my lady”, interrupted JARVIS, helpfully, “U didn’t add anything rotten or unadvisable for human consumption.”

“Oh, well, drink at your own risk”, sighed the woman, waving him on. Steve took a careful sip, shrugs, and kept drinking. Tasha shot him an ironic look.

“I’ve had much worse at the army”, explained Steve, unbothered, “and JARVIS calls you ‘my lady’?”

“Yes, so?” The brunette sat on the other stool, “I see you’ve made friends with my bots.”

“Well, they’re all sorts of amazing, Tasha”, smiled the blonde. The woman tilted her head for a moment, trying to remember who was the last person to not react to a first meeting with Dummy by either shrieking or running on the opposite direction. Steve drank another gulp and she shook her head.

“Yeah. Hum… here”, she mumbled, pushing a single photo across the worktable towards him. The man shot a curious look at the brunette, than picked the picture up and examined it. His eyes widened, his breath caught, and he put the blender cup on the worktable, holding the photo carefully, as if it might disintegrate before him.

“Is this…?” He exhaled, shooting a glance at Tasha.

“She’s a bit older, but she didn’t change that much”, replied the woman, keeping her cool.

On the photo, there was an elderly Peggy Carter, her hair starting to grey and deeper expression lines marking her face. She was kneeling, in a simple blue shirt and pants, holding an winter coat with one arm while the other apparently rested on the back of the person next to her. She was smiling, warm and happy, a bit blinded by the sun, her hair curling around her shoulder where the ponytail fell.

Standing at Peggy’s side, still shorter than the woman despite the fact the ex-soldier was kneeling to be at her level, was a dark-haired little girl. She seemed to be five or so, with curly pigtails and a smug smile that still managed to look child-like in its joy. There was a glistening plaque on her hands that read: Winner of the 27º Annual Math Challenge.

Steve’s fingers touched Peggy’s face hesitantly, and Tasha twirled her stool around, because his expression was too raw, too open and too emotional. She tinkered with her screens, running calculations and arguing with Jarvis and otherwise not looking at Steve.

“The little girl…” called the blond, coughing to cover for the huskiness in his voice, “is that you?”

“Yup-de-doo”, agreed the brunette, spinning back to face him, “by the time I was born, she didn’t hang around with my father anymore. Figures. It could’ve been the drinking problem or the overall jerkiness, I seriously don’t know”, she shrugged, nonchalant, “but when I was five or something she came to our house for God knows what reason, and I ran into her.” Tasha got up, walking about the workshop doing this and that, “she took me out when she was in town. Called me every week.”

“Aunt Peggy”, repeated Steve, blinking.

“Yeah.”

Of course, Tasha wasn’t telling the whole of it – starting by the fact that when she had run into Peggy, she had been using her Captain America helmet. The little girl had stopped and stared at the stranger doubtfully, examining her uniform and estimating her age.

“You are from the military”, spoke up the girl, cautious. Peggy had turned around in the sofa, startled, and stared at Tasha for a moment.

“Natasha?” She asked, softly.

“I’m not Natasha!” Replied the kid, annoyed “I’m Captainess America.”

“Oh”, the woman blinked, taking in a deep breath. “I’m Peggy Carter.”

“Were you in the military with my father?”

“…yes”, admitted Peggy, hesitant, as the small brunette circled the couch and stopped next to her.

“Did you know Captain America?” She asked, hopefully, fighting not to look too eager. At five, she obviously didn’t completely succeed.

“Yes.” The woman examined the young girl’s face, “doesn’t your father tell you about him?”

“He doesn’t shut up about him”, replied Tasha, “but not to me.”

“I see”, Peggy bit her lips, looking towards the door, then back at the girl, “tell you what. I have to talk to your father, but if you wait a while, I can take you… well… where do you like to go?”

“We could get ice cream”, suggested Tasha, dubious, as if she didn’t believe for a moment the lady was going to follow through her promise.

“Sure”, agreed Peggy. “What else?”

The brunette looked around, unsure, trying to decide if she should suggest what was on her mind, “I want to go the library”, she declared, pointing her chin up, “I want some books.”

“Can you read?” Blinked the woman.

“Of course I can read!” Chipped Tasha, outraged, “and write, too! See?” She opened her notebook and pointed flashily at her annotations, “I need books on programming, but father says I’m too young to read them.”

“Okay”, Peggy smiled, slowly, “we can do that. Let’s go to the library first. Sounds good? Can you wait for me for a while?”

“All right”, agreed the brunette, but she did not believe for a moment her new acquaintance was being serious.

Then, of course, Peggy had tracked her buried in her bedroom, helpfully aided by Jarvis, and done exactly what she’d promised. She’d gotten Tasha to the library, let her lent all the books she wanted to, then bought the girl an humongous bowl of ice cream and dropped her off at home by the end of the day.

Over the years, Peggy became a constant in Tasha’s life – not always there, like Jarvis, but one of the first numbers on her speed-dial, a go-to in certain moments of need, and even the cool aunt, who took her out when Jarvis had no time and her parents had no interest. That photo had been taken when the woman took the young genius to an open math competition that took place on a nearby college, in which the winner was granted a pretty decent sum of money.

The competition had been pie to Tasha’s blossoming brain. It had even been somewhat unfair to enroll on it, and it wasn’t a particularly important or media-covered event, but the brunette wanted to give Jarvis a present, and she refused to use her parent’s money for it.

It had been aunt Peggy’s idea.

Tasha was not so sure when or why she started calling the woman aunt Peggy, but she was certainly one of her favorite people in the world, and the one person she allowed to see her grief for both her parent’s death, and Jarvis’ death.

Pepper had seen echoes of Natasha’s grief over Peggy’s death, but not the whole of it.

Steve had missed her by five years.

“You can keep it if you want to”, said Tasha, shrugging.

“Really?” Oh, the puppy eyes. Why the puppy eyes. His fingers closed a little more tightly around the picture.

“Sure. Just… never, ever tell anyone this one is me, seriously. Actually, don’t ever take it out of its hiding place in public, just don’t, I’m wearing pigtails, for God’s sake, and I was eight already, there’s simply no excuse.”

“You were eight?” Repeated Steve, staring at the picture dumbfounded. “I could swear you were five.”

“I was a small kid!” Tasha threw her hands up, “what can I say, I shot up when I hit thirteen.”

“Thank you, Tasha”, smiled the blond, softly, and his eyes lit up with affection. He stared at the brunette in a way that made her twist in her seat, uncomfortable, because the last time someone looked at her like that – full of sincere admiration, kindness, fond intimacy, as if Tasha is genuinely their favorite person… it had actually… probably never happened. “This means a lot to me.”

“Well, we are surely going at full speed at this friendship thing, huh, who’d guess, we might actually still like each other by the end of the year.” Joked the brunette, and each word is painfully, secretly sincere.

Steve took none of her crap.

He got up and hugged her.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ Tasha thought to herself.


	10. Fuck my Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter.

Just seriously… fuck it.

As a child, fed by old comic books, the stolen histories told by her father to his military peers that Tasha eavesdropped, and aunt Peggy’s unending patience to retell all of them, even though it was painful to her, Tasha’s worship of Captain America grew deep, honest and passionate. It lasted, openly, until she was nine or so, but secretly, it never completely died.

It takes less than a day for Tasha to hate, painfully, strikingly, deeply _hate_ Steve Rogers.

It takes an alien invasion, the destruction of Manhattan, nearly dying and a dinner at the Shawarma place to make her think, _well, you know what, he might actually not be that bad._

About an year after Steve moves in with the rest of the Avengers, Tasha realizes she’s head over heels in love with him.

 _Oh fuck_ , she thinks.


	11. You Guys are Weird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter.

It’s the first six months after everyone moved in, and things are more or less chaotic. 

Sometimes they’re all on top of each other, other times everyone has scattered into their own dark corners. Sometimes _“awkward”_ happens, other times they act as if they’ve been living together for years. Some huge fights blow up, other minor ones stir, than they have to save the world again and are simply Too Tired to Care. Thor is still learning to master his inside voice and things have a tendency to show up either destroyed or in ridiculously weird places. Nat and Tasha sometimes hiss at each other, and everyone has to guide Steve through pop culture and seventy years of lost history.

The Tower belongs to Tasha and Cap is… _Cap,_ thus, one way or another, don’t ask her, she doesn’t know how it happened, but they become the unspoken leaders of the team. Phill is around often, but he still works for SHIELD, Natasha and Clint have their own thing, Bruce has a hard time letting go of his loner ways and Thor has to answer to Asgard – but somehow Steve and Tasha, together, pull out just enough gravitas to make it actually work as a team, instead of various strangers living together.

When Natasha realizes she has learned several little useless facts about her teammates, she knows she’s got _a bad case_ of the Family of Misfits trope.

Clint is shamelessly cuddly when he’s sleepy, resorting to Nat when Phill is not around – when he _is_ around, though, his ability of doing stuff with one hand and look dignified while cradling a drawling grown man is sort of astonishing. No one has managed to catch Nat sleeping as of yet, not even Steve, who wakes up at ungodly hours of the morning. Thor likes _My Little Pony_. So does Nat. So does Steve. It’s a bit disturbing.

Tasha has had a bit of a hard time getting used to having to dress before wandering into the kitchen, which has caused quite a lot of embarrassment and panicky not-looking-at-boobs-not-looking-at-your-boobs from Steve. 

_“Relax_ , Steve, they’re only _breasts”_ , teases the woman, rolling her eyes, “they feed babies and all.”

“Not yours, they don’t”, teases Nat, and they have a brief witty discussion about female anatomy on media that makes Phill enter the kitchen, grasp the subject, then turn around and leave.

Clint walks in still asleep and falls on the floor when he tries to lean on the spot where his boyfriend usually sits.

Tasha sleeps with her bra on because it’s so much more practical that way – besides, she has had to do one hell of a trial before finding a bra that actually supported her breasts efficiently and didn’t jam them against the edges of the arc reactor. It’s a plain, boring, sports bra that shows nothing, but it still takes some time for Cap to get over it.

The cussing contests come about, then Bruce and Steve decide to teach Thor how to cook, and Phill cracks his ribs on a mission, leading to a very over-protective Clint. They establish movie night is at wedsneday – “why do we have to have a movie night?” “this wouldn’t be a cliché-d sugary story about a dysfunctional, unlikely family without movie night, Cap” – because it’s there mostly for Steve’s sake, when they try to expose him to years of missed culture, and he has admitted Wednesday nights sort of bum him out.

“It’s just”, he explains, when he gets weird looks, “is in the middle of the week! It’s not early enough that you’re still rested from the weekend, but it’s not late enough that you can look forward to the _next_ weekend, it’s just kind of… there”, he concludes, embarrassed.

“That sorta makes sense” says Bruce.

“They’re cute”, Tasha remarks, turning at Nat.

“They are”, agrees the ginger, softly.

Tasha shows up at Bruce’s lab when she feels like talking sciency stuff. Nat and Clint share some old stories one day when is hot like the furnaces of _hell_ and they all decide to chill out at the kitchen floor, because obviously the brunette’s top of the line air conditioning happens to _break._

“Bunch of fuckers”, she mutters, too hot to go and fix it.

“Tasha”, reprehends Steve, severely.

“They _are!”_ Insists the genius, and the blonde is obviously also too hot to care.

When Jane comes to visit, Thor is incredibly endearing and sappy and Tasha has, luckily, put sound proofing in all rooms. Once, Bruce, Tasha and Jane decide to marathon Star Wars and dispute who can point out the greater number of scientific inaccuracies. Jane wins and Darcy isn’t even a little surprised. Thor is convinced that Padmé looks like Jane – no one else can quite see the resemblance, but she thinks it’s sweet of him.

They have a little fieldtrip once because Tasha decides she wants to buy coffee from all over the world and drink herself rotten, then everyone tags along for the hell of it.

There’s karaoke once, the series of events that led to it way too complicated, please don’t ask, but the fact of the matter is that there is footage of Clint and Nat dueting Abba’s _Does Your Mother Know That You’re Out_ and Steve singing Sinatra’s _My Way._

Nat gets a nasty shard of glass, as big as the distance between the points of her pinky and thumb, dug into her tight and Tasha and Phill have to take it off, because no one else is available. Tasha holds Nat in her lap, her arms going around the Russian spy, supporting her torso against the armor, and takes off one of her gloves so the ginger can dig her nails through her palms, biting back any sound of pain as Phill removes the shard.

Thor takes to telling them stories when they are stuck in long flights or boring waiting rooms, sometimes leaving them hanging on the best parts, but never picks up where he left once the mission is over: you have to wait until the next time they travel, and only then will the thunder god proceed with the narrative. It’s just how it is.

Bruce has a strange sixth sense for knowing when one of them is feeling tired or specially fed up, and showing up at their rooms with a cup of honeyed tea and a book he thinks they’ll like (except for Tasha. With Tasha, he brings particularly thorny math equations he needs help with).

It took Phill the entirety of those six months before he felt comfortable showing up in his pajamas in front of the team. The brunette would’ve teased him over it, but Clint seemed much too happy, and she decided not to.

Tasha has no idea whatsoever of how all of this happened, but she’s kind of okay with it.

Steve is… a bit more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About the constant, voo-doo changes of tense: I know. VERY sorry, guys. This is a problem: my brain does it on its own, I don't realize I changed tenses until I re-read the chapter. I'll go back and fix it once I have the time - for now I wanted to give you the chapters. Remember I'm posting, like, seven chapters in a row here! xD
> 
> Any other problems, trigger warnings I missed, feel free to point out.


	12. But You are the Weirdest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter

No matter how much time Tasha seems to be spending with her cliché family of misfits, Steve is certainly the one who’s _always there_. Mostly because he is usually the one rounding them up, but then there’s the times when it’s _only_ Steve and Tasha and, wow, those are equal parts of awkward and awesome.

They hang out at Tasha’s workshop. A lot. The brunette’s not sure why Steve likes so much to come down, but it seems her workshop is his favorite place to be when he has free time. She doesn’t mind it. She certainly doesn’t _expect him_ when the clock starts nearing the time he usually shows up. But she doesn’t mind it if he shows up. 

At first, Steve is somewhat awkward about it, entering shyly and asking permission to stay around a bit, he won’t bother her, just do his own thing. Tasha finds it extremely weird, but, yeah, sure, why the hell not. She swiftly forgets he’s there and proceeds on her working, tinkering, programming, improving and murmuring “yeah, _suck it_ , laws of physics”, when something goes right. JARVIS keeps the music down and Tasha is too immersed in her work to realize until Steve politely thanks her and leaves and the sudden blast of metal has Tasha nearly having a heart attack. 

He comes back again and again, until the brunette finally gets interested in what he’s doing and goes annoy Steve a bit. He is drawing, and they have a three-hour long conversation before they are even aware of it, and, hey, he is _so_ not as bad as she’d presumed him to be when they first met.

Tasha drags him along to the amusement park one day because he commits the mistake of admitting last time he went to one, he threw up. The whole day feels just a tad bit surreal and the woman has a hard time not squeezing Steve’s face when he gives her this adorable smile and says he hasn’t had this much fun ever since he woke up.

On the ride back – Steve says she’s driving too fast, they bicker, drop it, agree to disagree – Tasha casually asks who he went to the amusement park with last time, and the pain that flicks in his face is sudden and obvious and disturbing.

“Bucky”, admits the blonde, before catching sight of Tasha’s “shit, no, I suck at emotional support” face and trying to cover it up with a smile. “It was real fun. It’s just that it was pre-serum and…”

“Oh, _no_ ”, the brunette maneuvered the car into a random parking lot, twisted in her seat and pointed a finger at Steve, “don’t give me this virtuous hero crap, Rogers. I may not know who this chap was, but you are obviously not okay with… heck, I don’t know, with whatever it is that you’re not okay with, but you were making a _face_ right now and I so won’t take this fake smile bullshit. You want to be sad about it, then _be_ , I mean, I’m not going to go to the press and sell them pictures of sad Captain America or anything. Granted, I suck at giving any kind of emotional comfort, so you can’t expect much on _that_ front, but, hell, Steve, you don’t need to pretend to be okay when you’re not. Gotit?”

Steve blinked several times, then slowly, smiled – it was a sad smile, not a forced one, and he nodded, “got it.” 

“Great”, she put her belt back on and turned the engine, “of course this is extremely hypocritical coming from me, but do what I say, not what I do, right?”

“Don’t worry, I only processed about half of what you said.” Tasha raises his eyebrows at him, “I told you, you speak inhumanly fast, Tasha.”

She smiles, “can’t keep up, Capsicle?”

“Hard to think of someone who could keep up with you”, he shrugged, “I just tag along and enjoy the ride.”

“And nag me about speeding tickets.”

“Tasha?”

“Hum?”

“Thank you.” He said, looking at her calmly “I don’t think you suck at giving emotional support at all.”

“Maybe you just haven’t known me for long enough.”

“Nah”, he disagreed, a cheeky smile covering his face, “with you it’s like dog years.”

_“You got that one from Pepper!”_

And then they were laughing too hard to care.

Some days later they have their first real fight ever since the whole helicarrier drama. It involves politics and the press, starts on the kitchen, drags the whole way into the lab, and all the while Tasha gesticulates angrily and Steve tugs at his hair in frustration. There’s some serious screaming and close encounters with forbidden topics. Finally, the soldier slams the door on her and the brunette proceeds to let her anger out in some poor engine.

They make peace two days later.

Tasha is not sure when their teammates simply stop caring when they fight, promptly assuming it’ll be over soon enough. It’s equal parts infuriating, baffling and absolutely correct.

Steve is still coming down to the lab, and now they can’t seem to shut up when the other is around. Over the course of the next months, Tasha gets familiar with Steve’s whole backstory, including all that still causes him nightmares – Bucky’s death, the fall to the ice, waking up in the future. She’s not sure how, but the blonde even manages to wriggle something out of her, bits and pieces of her childhood and Obie and people judging her sexuality, people judging her morals, people judging pretty much her everything. 

One fine day Steve decides she needs to learn how to fight for herself and drags a whiny Tasha down to the gym and she doesn’t mind that much, because, again, _muscles_. Afterwards she takes secret classes with Nat and with the aid of the surprise element manages to kick Steve’s _ass_ , much to their amusement. 

Steve laughs 4.67 times more when he’s with Tasha, and she knows ‘cause she has had JARVIS run the calculations.

They go out for burgers after missions in full regalia and end up surrounded by an army of fans.

Finally, one of the many nights in which their insomnias coincided, they are sitting in the living room, eating leftovers and watching old black-and-white movies. Tasha is sprawled on the sofa wearing a bright red hoodie and grey mismatching sweatpants, her feet tucked under Steve because he’s warm and her toes are cold. One of his hands is resting easily on her ankle, the other is busy bringing food to his mouth while he tries not to unglue his eyes from the screen. 

“You know”, comments Tasha, lazily, slurping on her straw – and Steve still thinks drinking coffee from a straw is gross, but when she’s _this_ insomniac, she really doesn’t care – “I’m not usually into this old black-and-white kind of movie, but those actors are _seriously_ hot. I don’t even know which one of them I like better.”

“She really is very pretty”, agrees Steve, easily.

“What about _him?”_ Teases Tasha, nudging his tight with her toes. He holds her ankle to stop her.

“Not as pretty as her”, replies the blonde, and the woman laughs.

And then, for no reason whatsoever, as he is prone to do, Steve gives her _that_ smile – the one that says “you’re my favorite person in the whole world”, and that’ll never cease to blow Tasha’s mind a little.

Sluggishly, as if her mind can’t think straight no matter the amount of caffeine she has just injected into her system, a single phrase forms inside her brain.

_Shit, I love you so much._

And then the bell actually _rings_.

 _Oh fuck_ , she thinks.


	13. I’m Really Good at Denial

Tasha realizes she’s madly in love with Steve, but that doesn’t mean she accepts it.

In fact, about five seconds after her sleepy and slightly delusional brain musters the thought, she all but murders it, with a viciousness and blood-thirsty rage that could scare lesser women, were they able to read her mind. 

She’s not in love with Steve.

Absolutely not.

Nope.

Not even a little bit!

Oh, her life sucks.

The fact is, there is a reason why Tasha doesn’t want to be, shouldn’t be, and ultimately isn’t in love with Steve. Of course, there’s the unavoidable fact Tasha has Issues, and loving Captain America is so not going to work.

But then, there’s also Sharon.

And Tasha has been Steve’s confident when it comes to Sharon. She has helped the poor fellow make a good impression and don’t dress like a sap for their dates. The brunette has given place recommendations and congratulated him when they first kissed, and, even though Steve obviously draws the line on his sex life, and she knows because she has tried, Tasha has actively been helping him out with the woman.  
She isn’t that much of a good person, so it could only mean she’s not in love with Steve, right?

Besides, she knows Sharon Carter. Sharon is younger than her, and sometimes aunt Peggy dragged her along, and Tasha put up with her because they shared their idolization of Captain America and Sharon thought Tasha was awesome because the brunette had tons of Cap’s memorabilia. And is in the Women’s Code Honor you don’t tell each other you’re only friends, absolutely, I mean, what the fuck, noooooooo, I totally support you, then go back in your word and try to steal the man. Or woman. Or at least she supposes it is. It’s not like Tasha has had this many lady friends besides Pepper.

Steve looks like a love sick teenager, and Tasha won’t go and mess them up by being in love with the guy. No!

Besides, Tasha is exceptionally good at lying to herself.

“Me?” Asks the brunette, raising her goggles and nearly burning herself with her torch. Steve looks up from where he’s drawing and smiles shyly.  
“Yeah.”

“I’m your best friend?”

“Well, yes.”

“What about…”

“No”

“Isn’t it…”

“No.”

“Not even Sharon?”

Steve laughs. “Sharon is my girlfriend, it’s different.”

“So I’m your best friend?”

“Yes, Tasha, you are”, agrees the blonde, with a fond look on his face.

“Oh”, Tasha pushes her goggles back down, “well, right back at ya, Cap.”

“What of Pepper?”

“She’s my best girlfriend, it’s completely different.”

“And Bruce?”

“Best sciency friend. Whole other sphere.”

“Rhodey?”

“Shut up and take the job, Rogers.”

Sharon and Steve’s relationship lasts, including breaking-ups and making-ups, about three and a half years.

Meanwhile, Steve and Tasha are best friends. She is in love with him, but her brain does not get the memo. It isn’t until one party night Tasha thinks about the whole issue again.


	14. Well, That Was Unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: discussions of alcoholism, suicidal thoughts and reckless behavior. Mild language and discussions of sex.

Three years into the Avengers have caused Tasha to begin seeing her life as “Before Iron Woman”, “That-Time-Between-Iron-Woman-and-Loki”, “Brief Intermission between Loki and the Avengers” and “After the Avengers”.

She knows it makes little sense, but Before/After is just so boring!

Of course, things didn’t really go as smoothly as this division makes it seem. “Before Iron Woman” encompassed the first thirty-two years of her life, and that stands for her whole childhood, Javis’ and aunt Peggy’s deaths, her parent’s death, creating Dummy and JARVIS, meeting Rhodey and Pepper, ascending to the chair of Stark Industries, her time at MIT, her first time, her first time with a guy, a multitude of drunken nights and hangover mornings, the constant feeling of nothingness she had to battle to keep at bay, her obsession with Captain America, that buzzing feeling of joy when a new invention worked, the anger that bit hotly when people looked down at her, hidden photo albums and that one time when Sharon invited her to her birthday party and Tasha didn’t feel like a complete freak amongst her friends, because they were all younger and seemed to think the girl was the best thing ever since microwave popcorn.

It was thirty-two years’ worth of memories, and it was what had made Tasha, Tasha, but somehow things seemed to speed up at an outrageous rhythm after Iron Woman. It’s just that so much happened, sometimes the woman can’t quite wrap her mind around it’s been less than, what? Not even five years ever since that cave happened. Sometimes it feels as if no time at all has passed, as if no time will ever pass, as if Tasha is still being nearly drowned to death by terrorists with a car battery connected to her chest, and isn’t that a dumbass combination? 

Other times, though, it feels as if it all happened a lifetime ago, to another person Tasha can’t quite see herself in. It once happens that, when she’s whining to Pepper these days it’s just so hard to get a date, cause no one interests her anymore, her best friend laughs.

“Looks like someone is gaining a bit of self-respect”, she jokes, and it’s only half a joke, but it’s true, too, because any date will probably end up stumbling against one of the Avengers in the morning and some – many – most of the girls she used to bring home would be simply embarrassing. So it’s true Tasha is starting to gain a bit of self-respect, but it’s not so far on the road that she does it for herself as much as she does for the people who matter to her. It’s not perfect, but it’s something.

Three years being in a team of Superbeings have given birth to more stories and memories than could fit into a whole encyclopedia, not all of them pleasant, many of them downright depressing. It was hard, it involved injuries and emotional dramas and it has made her life feel most lived in that little time than in all the years previous to it.

Then Tasha accidentally gets herself drunk during a fire, nearly dies, and suddenly her team is on top of her with the ferocity of a gang of lionesses. 

And Steve takes it on himself to make Tasha see she has a problem.

The following months are as dramatic as her life has ever been, and that’s saying something. It’d probably do for a book, a best-selling, dramatic, life-turning kind of book, if Tasha ever had the actual attention span to write it, or the will to let all the assholes out there know of her lowest points, which she doesn’t.

Especially because sometimes, when Cap is making his disappointed face, Tasha is painfully reminded of a bad relapse and trying to understand his words through a thick booze fog, only managing to catch random sentences like “trying to kill yourself” and “have any idea” and “it’d kill me”. And although to this day she’s not much sure what the contents of the talk were, Tasha remembers the face that went with it. It wasn’t the turning point for her – no, that one was one fine night realizing she had been about to missprogram the Iron Woman armor, which would’ve led to disaster because she had been too wrecked on withdrawal – but it still haunts the woman whenever she as much as picks up a drink.

But the bottom line here is that Tasha is officially a recovering alcoholic, and Steve manages to actually convince her to celebrate leaving rehab by throwing a party, and he is deaf to her complaints she can’t throw a proper party without alcohol, and when he manages to convince Pepper to join him, Tasha knows that’s a lost fight.

They set the date and every single guest in that house has seen Tasha in a more or less embarrassing estate of drunkenness, but weirdly enough the real reason for the celebration never seems to come out. They all hug her and congratulate her, but no one actually comes out and say “you have finally stopped embarrassing yourself with alcohol! Wow!”, and for some unfathomable reason Tasha likes it better that way, which makes no sense considering she’s always hated elephants in the room. This, however, this doesn’t feel like an elephant, it feels more like an unspoken agreement she has the power to break if she wishes to, she could, but she doesn’t want to, so that’s okay.

Everything turns into a complete mess and shenanigans, of course, because the Avengers don’t need booze to be absurd and nonsensical, with Pepper’s engagement ring being fawned over, Clint doing an obscene dance in the coffee table and Phill not being able to decide if he has the will to stop him, and Tasha and Rhodey trying to kill each other on the videogame. 

Tasha is hardly ever been happier in her life, but she’ll have to kill you if she tells you this.

“DIE, SCUM, DIE!” She shrieks, pushing her buttons madly.

“FUCK YOU, TASHA!” Replies Rhodey and they are having way too much fun for two grown superheroes (heroine).

“Has someone seen Steve?” Interrupts Pepper, looking up from the spot where she and Nat are – well, Tasha isn’t sure what they are doing, they could be talking or they could be having a staring context, she’s not really sure who would win that one, or revisiting memories from the times they teamed up on the brunette, including that one when Tasha refused to wear a bridesmaid dress or… whatever. Happy sits next to his fiancée eating a slice of pizza and shakes his head, indicating that no, he hasn’t seen Steve.

“I haven’t seen him for a while”, agrees Bruce, his arm around Betty, turning his head around as if Steve will magically pop up out of nowhere.

“EAT THIS, YOU ASSHOLE”, exclaims Tasha, oblivious to the talk going on around her and shoving Rhodey’s shoulder as her character lands a flying kick on his character.

“Tasha” calls Pepper, stern, in her “stop playing and sign this” tone of voice. “Do you know where Steve went to?”

“I don’t know, Pepper, I don’t live in Steve’s ass”, replies the brunette, looking rapidly over her shoulder. “Is Sharon around? No, right? They must be shagging! Leave the man be.”

“That’s weird”, disagrees Phill, finally getting Clint off the table by pulling the archer into his lap, “Steve doesn’t usually disappear at parties.”

“Yeah, he always says it’s impolite”, adds his boyfriend, tossing an arm around Phill’s neck.

“Not more impolite than you two making out in front of us! Get a room!” Teases Tasha, dropping the controls when Rhodey’s character dies and the man mutters something about a rematch.

“Blow off, Stark, it’s not my fault if you’re sexually frustrated”, shots Clint back, unbothered.

“I get more pussy than you any day of the week, bitch.”

“But no dick, huh?” Asks the man, leaning obscenely into Coulson, who promptly lets him fall on his butt in the floor.

“Do you guys have any kind of decency at all?” Asks Rhodey, but he’s only sore he lost. 

“Nopes”, they sing together, giving each other wide grins.

“Tasha”, says Pepper again, ending the discussion, “go look for Steve.”

“But Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepper”, whines the brunette, “I’m kicking Rhodey’s ass!”

“Tasha, be a good friend, and go look for Steve”, admonishes the ginger, and her friend sighs and gets up, because, really, no point arguing with Pepper.

Obviously, Tasha can simply ask for JARVIS to locate Steve, so she’s mostly mumbling that this is stupid, the lovebirds must be off somewhere having quality time together, or whatever it is they do these days, but, hey, her bladder is actually full to the point of bursting, how did she not notice before, damn diet coke, right, bathroom, bathroom, bathroom…

“…busy with Tasha!”

The woman freezes in her tracks and instinctively retreats into the shadow as soon as the female voice reaches her ears. Steve and Sharon are by the corridor curve, their postures tense and their voices being held low by force, and if this isn’t a fight, Tasha damn well doesn’t know what is.

“Tasha is my friend”, replies Steve, and he has his “see this the way I see it, please, I’m being completely reasonable here” expression that Tasha always has to call him out on because it’s pure bullshit, and it might work on other people who think Captain America is always right, but not on her. “She needed my help, Sharon!” 

“I’m not saying that she didn’t, Steve”, said the woman, frustrated, “but Tasha is a grown woman who has many other friends. She had the whole Avengers team to keep her from drinking, the most advanced AI in the world who had been programmed with enough safeguards to throw off three of her, not to mention Pepper, Rhodey and Happy! And you acted as if she was your responsibility, as if you had to personally make sure she was okay at all times. When you weren’t with her or talking about her you were thinking about her, and don’t give me that look, you know it’s true!”

“I was worried!” arguments the blonde meekly. Sharon shakes her head, her hands resting helplessly at her hips.

“Steve”, she whispers, cupping his face, “let’s stop pretending that this isn’t happening, okay? Our relationship has been falling apart this past year, and some of it was Tasha, but it really is us. This is Captain America and Peggy Carter’s grandniece dating here, not Steve and Sharon, and it’s showing.”

“But…” the man seems lost at sea. He covers the blonde’s hands with his own, “I’m sorry, Sharon. I’m sorry that I made you feel… left aside. But I… I really love you. Can’t we try to make this work out? I promise I’ll be more attentive. I don’t want to give up on you, yet.”

“Oh, sweetie”, she breathes deeply and lets go, “I do love you too, but we are as much in love with each other’s idea as we are with each other. I… I need someone who’s down there in Earth with me, and not up here in the Avengers Tower. I need someone to have my back at all matters, not only at SHIELD”, she pauses, biting her lips, “and I think that you might need someone who’s more willing to disagree with you. And I think we both know who I am talking about.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Whisper Steve, looking like a kicked puppy, and Sharon only nods. He sighs, his shoulders shagging and nods in unison. “I’ll miss you”, he says, sadly.

“Me too”, agrees Sharon. “Last kiss, alright?” She proposes.

Tasha gets the hell out of there.


	15. This Will End Badly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter

On the latest turns of events, Tasha overheard a conversation in which Sharon ended things with Steve and may, or may not, have told him Tasha is the right person for him.

So what’s she supposed to do with _that?_

For one thing, Tasha isn’t in love with Steve. Nope. No. _No._ She goes through a whole bunch of dangerous and adrenaline-pumping tests with the Iron Woman trying to drown these thoughts, and starts to panic because they _won’t go away._

Oh my God, if she ever accepts that she _loves_ Steve, then were the hell will that lead?

 _She was not talking about you_ , insists the most rational portion of her brain. Sharon said you fucked up their relationship – _and, oh, great brand new Guilty Package to live with! I needed more of those, thanks, I really did_ – and then said Steve knew who was the person who was willing to disagree with him, but it is no proof she meant you. In fact, she couldn’t have meant you, because you are not willing to disagree with Steve. He gives you those puppy eyes and that stern stance and drags you to eat and you can never resist him.

So surely Sharon couldn’t have meant _you._

Wait, so does it mean there’s _someone else?_

Which would be… great! Of course it’d be great! Steve is her best friend, and Tasha wants him to be happy, so of course it is great that he is in love with someone who is… willing to disagree with him or whatever it is Sharon meant. Why does Steve need someone to say he’s wrong, anyway? The guy is _Captain America_. He is _never_ wrong.

 _Oh, but he is!_ Screams another portion of her brain and for a moment the brunette is sure she’s gone _insane_ , because it sounds an awful lot like the part of her brain that does _the good decisions_ , the one that urged her to create the Iron Woman and who stood up for Bruce and knew better than to invest on Pepper.

“Not gonna listen to you!” Declares Tasha, blasting up her music to its maximum. “Not gonna hear you!”

 _Oh, but he is_ , insists it, _Steve is more than Captain America. He’s a human being and he makes mistakes. And no one else is tough enough to tell him to shut up to his face._

Tasha grits her teeth and refuses to see matters that way. Steve and she had been so frequently around each other on the first year after the Avengers were formed it mustn’t have been healthy, and nothing had happened. _Nothing!_ Not even awkward sexual tension or unnaturally long stares, or the occasional weird body contact. There was _nothing_ between them!

Except they could talk for hours without end and it never got awkward, they were so used at exchanging eye glances and faces it didn’t even register anymore until someone exclaimed “can you hold that argument out loud, for fuck’s sake?”, and by then they had seen each other in so many varying stages of undress thanks to injuries and living together, not to mention the sheer quantity of _groping_ that came with flying his ass everywhere, they were practically _married._

Oh, no, why did her brain have to come up with that word, _why that word_ , not thinking about it, changing my train of thought _right now._

Except she _can’t_ , she can’t stop thinking about Steve, and having to bombard every thought with a firm “don’t love him” is starting to become exhausting. Don’t take it wrong, she could keep it up for _months_ , but… not forever, no, and does this mean she might have to actually _deal with her feelings?_

She has had to do it already the past year, _extensively_ , and isn’t being an alcoholic bad enough, does she has to have relationship issues with Steve now, too?

_Not in love with Steve._

The way he carried her to bed when she fell asleep on the workshop, even though both knew she always awoke when someone touched her, but this was _Steve, oh, only Steve_ , and she was too lazy to move, so whatever, right, and he wished her good night lowly, dropping the lights, but never turning them _off_ because he knew sometimes she woke up not remembering having been carried to bed and the darkness made her freak out.

_Not in love with Steve._

That times when they had first started to hang out when he’d push a chair for her, or open a door, then proceeded to be embarrassed about it, because do men these days even do those anymore, and won’t Tasha be annoyed? And Tasha _does_ find it annoying, I mean, it’s not like she can’t do it for herself, but it’s also true she does it for Pepper all the time, and it isn’t poor Steve’s fault, he’s _ancient_ , so the brunette always lets him get away with it, because it might or might not be just a tad bit cute.

_Not in love with Steve._

Fighting against the latest disaster that has stuck, their movements so coordinate it even feels like it’s been choreographed, and they always kick ass together, _always_ , she gets Steve to places and Steve bonces his shield at sneaky attackers coming from her back, and he’s always worried about her, but never, _ever_ treats her as if she’s made of paper.

_Not in love with Steve._

He always accompanies her to boring gala events and they sway easily in one place, even though both can dance very well, simply because it’s more comfortable that way.

_Not in love with Steve._

The way they always seem to end up sitting side-by-side on waiting rooms, when one of their teammates is hurt, when they know bad news are bound to arrive, whenever they are faced with a new environment – before they notice, they have found each other and are standing close together, neatly tuned to each other’s stress levels.

_Not in love with Steve._

Her heart threatening to leap out of her throat when Steve disappears under a pile of debris.

__Not in love with Steve._ _

Steve likes to sketch her hands and he’s always a bit embarrassed about it, but Tasha secretly lingers a bit longer than what’s strictly necessary on delicate work just so he can get a better look.

_Not in love with Steve._

Sitting on the couch watching old black-and-white movies, and her feet are tucked under the man’s tight because her toes are cold and Steve is warm and his hand is resting on her ankle and for no reason whatsoever Steve gives her this smile, and Tasha loves that smile so much, and she thinks sluggishly…

_NO! NO, NO, NO, NO._

“Tasha?”

“STEVE!” Shrieks the brunette immediately snapping up, because, hey, it seems she’s been banging her hands against her workbench and saying that last rant aloud, isn’t that great? “Heeeeey, _Steve_ ”, she tries to fix, opening a wide smile, “what’s up, Cap? Need anything?”

“Not really”, he smiles, used to his friend’s shenanigans, slipping on the stool on front of her, “just wanted to know if you’re up to going out for a pizza. I… don’t really feel like staying inside.”

 _Well, duh_ , thinks Tasha. That’s easy enough to understand. Friday night is when you are expected to meet up with your girl and it is what’s Steve’s been doing for more or less _three years_ and now it’s those first awkward nights in which you aren’t dating anymore and what are you supposed to do? So you grab your best buddy who can keep you company without making it weird and be understanding about your recently-single status and go out and try to make you feel a bit better.

Oh, so Tasha is being summoned to Best Friend Duties while she tries to repress the fact she’s in love with said best friend.

That can’t end badly at all, can it?

And it really doesn’t, it is normal, and not weird, and they have fun as always and _don’t_ drink, stay out until midnight because by then the restaurant kicks them out, eat as two dying people, Steve loses a bet on trying spicy salsa and has to gulp down four cups of milk before it stops burning and Tasha throws an arm around him and tells him he’ll be okay, he’ll be just fine, and that women will be falling in a line as long as Doctor Doom’s list of failed robots to date him.

“I know that”, agrees the blonde, as they walk back to Avenger’s tower, the nigh slightly chilly, but still pleasant enough. “It’s just that… I don’t think I’d _want_ to date them. I mean”, he rapidly adds, because Steve is physically incapable of being mean, “not that there aren’t lovely women out there, and I’m sure lots of them are very nice people, but… I live a really dangerous life. Aside from… superheroines, or SHIELD agents, I don’t think anyone could really understand it.”

And, hey, Tasha can totally understand that, because she’s been there – she has had Pepper breaking down and nearly having a fit and saying she couldn’t take it anymore, she never knew when Tasha was going to get herself blown up, and it’s really hard, isn’t it, having to sit and wait for your loved one to come back and being unable to help him or her against powers that are so much bigger than you?

“Some people make it work”, disagrees the brunette, because that’s also true, there are some people who _can_ take the stress, who stand next to heroes and heroines and make a home for them to come back to, people who are the bravest in their own sense “have you ever seen Army Wives? And if anyone can manage to balance things out, it’s you.”

“I don’t know…” mumbled Steve, awkward, looking lonely and longing and wondering. “I don’t think it’s fair on anyone to be left waiting at home.”

“Well”, the woman mused, placing her hands on her hips severely “then _what_ kind of woman do you eventually think you could fall for? There has to be _someone_ , mister Star-Spangled Bachelor. Wow, God, no, that joke sucked dick, ignore I ever said that.”

Steve laughed, shaking his head. “Okay” he agreed, circling around to face Tasha, his hands shoved into his pockets, doing his kinda-swaying-back-and-forth, head tucked between his shoulders shy stance, “I think I’d like someone who was… well… actually, I think I’d fall in love for someone who was like you, Tasha.”

Out of nowhere, _all_ the warning sirens started wailing in the woman’s head.

And for a second there, Tasha had a moment of _clarity_ , and everything was clear and all the pieces fit and the final picture was terrifying.

Steve didn’t summon her for Best Friend Duties. That’d be stupid, how long had it been since they had broken up, months? Something? He had already had the time to get used to lonely Friday nights. Steve had _asked her out_. He had listened to what Sharon had said and had decided to try this, and he had asked Tasha out and was awkwardly, shyly, in the most adorable Steve fashion, trying to signal that to her. Steve was _flirting_ with her.

And, oh, God, Tasha knew he’d have a whole other set of… _of stuff_ he’d have planned to tell her, and it could be about his feelings for her, or maybe he’d try to kiss her, but Steve was taking the first step, and it hit the woman harder than being thrown out the window of her tower, harder than seeing the Stark Industries missile land next to her: _she loved him so much._

 _I do, don’t I?_ , she thinks, and she’s sure she’s never, _ever_ felt anything quite exactly as she feels this right now, and in that moment of clarity Tasha knows she’ll _always_ love him. Not loving Steve is not an alternative anymore, that piece of her has stuck itself quietly in her very foundations, and pulling it out might bent the whole thing in a different shape. It’s just a part of who _she is._

The sheer finality of it nearly makes Tasha see white spots for a moment.

Then the moment passes, and right in its heels comes intense, sharp and complete panic. Tasha can’t even think around it long enough to offer up some meek, half-ass excuse to Steve, and she can see he already noticed her trapped expression anyway. So instead of giving him time to say anything else, she turns on her heels and runs away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, everyone, thank you very much for reading and for putting up with the wild tense swings. I am working on the two last chapters of my last fic - let's see if I can go back and fix this ones by myself!
> 
> As always, please feel free to tell me if anything needs trigger warning, or any other thing. Kudos to you.


	16. Can’t Drink, Can’t Blow Stuff Up, Sex Will Have to Do (In my Defense, it Wasn’t Planned)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: discussions of alcoholism, rebounds, trust issues and serious low self-confidence. Mild sex scene.

Tasha gets in the first cab she finds and tells the driver the first address that pops up in her mind. Then she just sits back and panics quietly.

God, she wants a drink _so badly_. Her mind keeps coming up with suggestions, trails of thought about how to get alcohol, where to get alcohol, how to keep it from her teammates, where to hide until the hangover goes away and Tasha has to wrestle them all back even as they keep popping up, because no, _no_ , she has almost gotten dozens of people killed again due to her mistakes, and Tasha will not have a relapse, not again, _not ever._

“We’re here, miss” calls out the cabbie and Tasha’s head snaps up, not sure at all where “here” is supposed to be, and fearing for a moment she had given him the Avengers Tower address without realizing. It takes a moment to process where the fuck she is, but then it hits her, of course she’d have given him this address, because it’s the first in alphabetical order on Tasha’s Nice Places to Be, and that’s simply how her brain works.

Or maybe it had nothing to do with that and it’s much simpler than it, and _God fucking damn it, she wants a drink._

Tasha pays the driver and runs up the three flights of stairs, and buzzes the bell and checks her watch, but no, it isn’t so late as to be weird, maybe she can convince there’s nothing wrong, she won’t have to deal with this today, you know what, she’ll simply _never_ deal with it, she’s good at that.

“Tasha?”

“Hey, Rhodey”, greets the brunette, splattering a smile on her face. “Can I come in?”

“Hum, sure”, Rhodey is wearing jeans and a simple t-shirt, obviously having a calm night in. There’s a pen behind his ear and paperwork on the kitchen table, and that’s just so Rhodey, isn’t it, and Tasha hangs her coat carelessly on the sofa, and the man has stopped bothering himself with that ages ago. “Everything all right?”

“Sure, of course.” Agrees Tasha, perfectly smooth, but not for Rhodey, not for the guy who was hauling her drunk ass off bars when she was too young to be drinking, too angry to care, and too dizzy to move by herself.

“Aham”, he says, and he’s obviously not fooled, but here’s the thing: Rhodey has been around long enough to know it’s a lost cause, and a useless waste of energy, to try to get Tasha to talk about all of her problems. So he has learned, as a good military man, to pick his battles and only nag Tasha when he feels she _really_ needs the help or can’t be left to her own devices without risking tragedy. Besides, they have already had much drama when it comes to Trust Issues, and Rhodey has learnt to never give Tasha the opportunity to use the phrase: “listen to me!”

“So, what were you doing?” Asks the brunette, hoping she can convince Rhodey is Not That Bad. She’s freaking a little less badly now she’s inside, because the only booze Rhodey has at home is a brand of beer Tasha hates, not that it’d have stopped her when she was in one of her bad days before, but anyway he won’t let her drink, that’s for sure.

Then Rhodey catches her looking at the refrigerator as if it might bite, and he _gets it._

“What happened?” He inquires, because anything that sends Tasha into a fit of alcoholic want bad enough to bring her here is worthy bugging her for.

“Nothing! Nothing happened”, replies her immediately, but the elephant in the room has been brought up and now Tasha is thinking about it again, and to add up to the situation she realizes she has just left Steve, _I’m-Trying-to-Move-On-With-my-Love-Life_ Steve, full of hope and eagerness Steve planted on a sidewalk with no explanations whatsoever. “Oh, _shit”_ , she mutters before she can stop herself, and immediately turns around and walks back to Rhodey, because he might have to physically restrain her from drinking that sloppy-tasting beer.

“Tasha”, Rhodey puts a hand on her shoulder, shakes her in the slightest and asks, “what. Happened?”

“Nothing. Nothing _at all”_ , hisses Tasha, before shaking his hands away and start pacing the living room, “except, you know, Steve flirted with me.”

“What?” Asks Rhodey, more in the “what the fuck?” tone than in the “you blew up what now?!” tone, which is… good. Hopefully.

“Steve flirted with me”, repeated Tasha, still pacing, “or at least, I don’t know, I guess that’s his version of flirting, anyway, because Sharon, God, I don’t know what she was thinking, see, that party we had, remember, the Tasha-Has-Stopped-Drinking-her-Sorry-Ass-Off, yay!, party we had?” Rhodey nods, knowing well how to wait for his friend to make her point.

And just like that, Tasha is spilling the beans – she has no idea whatsoever what she’s talking about, going back and forth between Sharon, Steve is a Fucking Puppy, I’m an Idiot and the most recent events, pacing the entire time and speaking so fast she gets herself out of breath, but anyway everything is out, and it hasn’t make it better, _not one bit._

“So…” says Rhodey, slowly, trying to process everything, “you’re upset because you think Steve might be in love with you…?”

“No, Rhodey, by the love of God, try to keep up, will you?” Disagrees Tasha, frustrated. Her hair is falling loose everywhere, messy from where she’d been tugging at it, “I’m ‘upset’”, she makes a point of doing the most exaggerated air quotes ever, “because _I am_ in love with _Steve!”_

 _“OH”_ , replies the man, with the “ahá, Tasha finally made sense!” expression her friends always seem to get, it’s really annoying. Then it clogs up with confusion again, “and… why is it a bad thing?” He asks, tentatively.

 _“Why is it a bad thing?”_ Repeats Tasha, unbelieving, “are you fucking kidding me? It’s a disaster!”

“Aren’t you being a little overly dramatic here, Tasha?” Sighs Rhodey, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Overly dramatic my ass.” Grunts the brunette.

“Well, I just don’t see what the big issue is” admits the man, shrugging, “honestly, you could do worse than Steve. You guys are already glued by the hip, anyway."

“That’s exactly the problem!” Tasha wants to strangle him now. Just a little bit.

“What? That you are glued to the hip?” He follows her on her pacing, now, “what difference does it make?”

“Are you even understanding the situation, Rhodey? I _can’t_ be in love with Steve!”

 _“Can’t_ or _don’t want to?”_

_“CAN’T!”_

“But _why?”_

 _“Because”_ Hisses Tasha, stopping dead on her pacing, whipping around to meet him, and her eyes are dark and panicky, like a deer caught in the headlights, but also wild and burning, like a lioness ready to strike, her cheeks flushed and an almost unnoticeable layer of tears under her eyelids “if I’m _in love_ with him, that means that _I’ll need him!”_

The silence that fell was heavy like a ton of bricks.

Her breathing was sped up and heavy. She begun pacing again.

“There’s nothing wrong with…” tries Rhodey, reaching for her shoulder.

“Yes, there is!” Tasha turns around and she’s face to face with him again, almost the exact same height, as if they’re playing a hide-and-seek game or something “I already need him too much, Rhodey”, she whispers, deadly serious and meaning every word of it and _hating_ it, “I can’t afford to need him anymore.”

And Rhodey looks back with equal seriousness and he _gets it_ , because he has known Tasha for longer than anyone else on her closest cycle. He understands. He knows that this is making Tasha feel out of control, free falling into sharp rocks with no repulsors, unable to hold on to her own life, because it _is_ scary, handing someone else such an important part of your heart all at once, given them so much power over you, but it’s so much worse for Tasha, who’s so constantly afraid of losing control, so permanently haunted by past mistakes, and so fiercely set in doing things alone.

And isn’t it that much worse when the person in question is already so important, _already_ holds so much power over you, already is such a big part of your life, when the person in question is _Steve Rogers_ , who does seem like an impossibly high standard, and maybe it is equally scary being _handed_ another person’s heart, specially one as Steve’s which was a hero’s before his body caught up with it, who has lost every single person he ever cared about and whose expressions were so open sometimes reading him felt like cheating.

Not even the Iron Woman, the very soul of who Tasha wants to be and what holds her together when nothing else matters, is free from Steve, because Iron Woman needs Captain America too, he’s always the one there fighting back-to-back with her, and isn’t _that_ absolutely frightful?

“I _can’t”,_ repeats Tasha, low and final, and, only to Rhodey’s ears, heartbroken.

“Tasha…”

She grabs him by the neck and kisses him.

And this awkward sexual tension thing between them has been on and off these past years, sometimes nearly inexistent, sometimes almost alive in its presence, but now it pops audibly and it washes Tasha’s mind clean of Steve, and it’s not as powerful as the wave that has hit her just some minutes ago, but it’s enough for now, and it isn’t any less _good._

Rhodey hesitates for a second, maybe realizing, wait, no, bad idea, rewind a bit, shall we? But then again this is _Rhodey,_ the guy she does stupid shit with in the most dangerous, most advanced and expensive piece of technology in the planet, and she loves him for it, and that’s how she knows he’ll kiss back. He does.

Her arms go around his neck and he grabs her by the waist and _kisses her_ , and it’s been sometime ever since she’s last done it, because, again, stupid high standards, and even more time ever since she’s done it with a guy, because, _again_ , stupid higher standards, but she’d spent chunks of her teenager years imagining this, and oh, it isn’t letting her down. At all.

Their tongues tangle, and it isn’t gentle, it’s hungry and delicious and a perfect physical translation of their usual bickering, nearly playfully fighting for dominance and then Rhodey sucks on Tasha’s upper lip, and damn bastard, he still remembered the one time she had casually thrown away the fact it annoyed her people pretended she had no upper lip, what the fuck, and the comment had sounded weird and idiot and made no sense but he remembered it now. He tilted his head to the side and their mouths slid against each other, brushing and pressing, sucking and searching and fervently kissing, and Rhodey held her tights and yanked her up and Tasha wrapped her legs around his waist and bit into his lips teasingly.

They stumbled their way to the bedroom, miraculously avoiding wrecking the living room too much and slammed the door loudly behind them and Tasha is yanking Rhodey’s shirt up and away, her fingers clinging tightly in his back, and he’s kissing her neck, her ear, her throat, and his hands sneak under her top, thumbs digging into her hipbones and fuck if this isn’t the best part about sleeping with a best friend, that they already know all the little things that set you on fire. So Tasha backs up, not enough space between them, but only a teasing tiny bit and ghosts the tip of her fingers across his chest, outlining every muscle, then spreads her palms over his back and pulls Rhodey back, wrapping herself around him and his breathing catches, stumbling back towards the bed.

“Shit, Tasha”, he pants into her ear and they kiss again, lips mashed together, her fingers digging into his neck, his hands maneuvering her tight out of the way before she slammed it on the bed’s edge. They fall tangled together on the bed, and clothes start coming off faster, hushed hands pulling zippers down, knees bumping while they make their way up the mattresses, bodies tangled, legs intertwined, and skin gliding and Tasha shoves her elbow on his side and says _“condoms”_ her voice unwavering, even if it’s out of breath.

Their hips start moving together and Tasha lets her head fall back, angling her body towards Rhodey’s, dark hair pooling on the pillow, her hands grasping his shoulder blades tightly and feeling them shift under her grip and it feels great, it feels amazing, it feels exactly as teenager Tasha hoped it would feel all those years ago, but not like that at all, because there’s a world of distance between who she was then and who she is now. Rhodey’s lips are on the spot right underneath her ear that makes her entire body go _jelly_ , and she moans his name as loud as her lungs can spare, which isn’t much.

Tasha closes her eyes and her whole body clenches.

 _OH, GOD,_ she screams in her mind, because she cannot possibly muster any sound.

“Tasha?” Comes Rhodey’s voice from her ear, tentative, insistent, “Tasha, you with me?”

“No”, breathes the woman, refusing to open her eyes, “I’m in post-orgasm bliss, Rhodey, go away.”

He laughs lowly, amused, and her body goes limp, soft and warm and lazy as if it’s made of noodles, and she fucking loves that sensation. That must be how cats feel when they are held by the scruff of their necks.

They nestle someway in the bed, the situation familiar, yet long forgotten, reminiscent from drunken teenager nights, falling in bed fully clothed, too sleepy to care if the warm, accommodating something you were snuggling against was human or a pile of covers or an electric heater, as long as it was yielding enough to sleep in. He throws an arm around her back and she borrows his chest as a pillow and they end up asleep out of pure laziness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I JUST noticed two different people left me comments about the title - guys, I promise I know three sexual chromosomes leads to syndromes. That was an artistic license. 
> 
> Thank you once more for reading, putting up with any and all grammar mistakes, and please feel free to tell me if anything is problematic, in need of trigger warnings, or... anything, really. In my next works, I'll keep trying to get better. Big hug, and don't forget, the reverse Big-Bang has started, and there's very few fannart left for choosing ;D


	17. In Retrospect, that Might Have Been a Bad Idea (But, hey, it Wasn’t Awkward as Fuck!) (That’s Good, Right?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: mentions of alcoholism

Tasha woke up on the next day hugging a pillow, sprawled on Rhodey’s bed. That alone already earned fifty points to the day: she _adored_ his pillows. Rhodey was really bitchy when it came to pillows, almost neurotic, really, and although he’d learned to settle for whatever was in hand with the military, at his own home, he let his pickiness reign free. His pillows were always impossibly fluffy, clean, pressed and smelling of softener, like hot towels. Oh, heaven. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, heaven. She dug her face into them and breathed deeply, about a second before she remembered, _nononono, deep breaths are a bad idea_ , and her body tensed, waiting for the hangover to kick in…

Oh, nothing.

That was odd.

Tasha made an inventory, and… nothing hurt.

Huh.

Really odd.

Hadn’t she been drinking last night?

 _OH NO, SHIT, right, I’m an alcoholic,_ remembered Tasha, out of nowhere, laughing softly. That’s right, she didn’t drink anymore. Of course she wouldn’t be hangover. Oh, wow. Now that was a beautiful aspect of the whole thing she hadn’t known to appreciate up until now. No hangovers ever again! Yey!

Okay, but what was she doing in Rhodey’s bed if she wasn’t…

Oh.

_Ohhh._

Oh, that’s right. Naked. Pleasant noodle feeling. The slight ache where hitches might form. _Sex. Right._ Wow. With Rhodey. That was… that was unexpected. Not that they hadn’t sorta wanted do that for years now, but why exactly…

 _OH_.

FUCK! Tasha groaned loudly into the pillow. _Steve. Of course._

“My life sucks” she moaned, face-down on the bed. Thank God for endorphins right now, or who knew if she wouldn’t just stay there until she asphyxiated. Sighing, Tasha raised her head and looked around, but she was alone in his bedroom, the pillow all to herself, the sheets halfway to the floor and tangled around her legs. She looked at the clock: it was past midday. What the fuck? Silently, the woman tried to remember the last time she had slept. She couldn’t pinpoint it. Well, that explained it.

“What day is today?” Asked Tasha out loud, half because she talked to herself, half because she was so used to JARVIS. Saturday, that was it. Did people work on Saturdays? It often made her a bit confused in the morning, before her brain was on caffeine again, because normal people’s working hours were so impossibly dull. Nopes, not on Saturday, she concluded after some deliberation. So where the hell was Rhodey?  
Oh, who cares. Pillow. She wanted to stay with that pillow forever and never have to face Steve ever again. Never. _Ever._

But Tasha had never dozed off again after waking up for as long as she could remember, and today wasn’t going to be the exception.

“Well, _thank God_ , I was beginning to think I had killed you or something”, greeted Rhodey, cheerfully, from the sofa.

“Don’t brag, Rhodey. You’re not all that”, teased the brunette, wandering into the living room in search of her clothes. “Where are…”

“All over the place, actually”, answered the man, smirking. “I put them over there”, he gestured to a chair, “and let it be known I knew you’d wander here naked.” He rolled his eyes at her, all the curtains helpfully shut.

“Well, so what? Nothing here you haven’t seen before.”

“And I’m sure my thirteen-year old neighbor would love the view.”

“Point taken.” She pulled her pants up, “is there coffee?”

“You realize it’s past lunchtime, right?”

“Is there food?”

Rhodey rolled his eyes again. “There’s Chinese in the fridge, and you can make coffee if you can figure out how.”

“I _can_ figure out how, Rhodey. I’m a fucking genius, remember?” She mocked, entering the kitchen.

Some frustrating minutes later, the man had to come in to do it himself, because obviously Tasha couldn’t maneuver a non-electronic old-fashioned strainer. He sat down with her while she ate, finishing wrapping-up his papers.

“So. We had sex and it doesn’t feel awkward as fuck.” Remarked Rhodey, mildly surprised.

“Huh, it doesn’t, does it?” Agreed the brunette, around a mouthful of noodles, “I kinda always assumed it would. Be awkward. Or that the… the whole sexual tension thing would get worse. That’s funny”, she swallowed, “I feel nothing, whatsoever.”

“Me neither”, Rhodey shrugged, “guess that’s about it, right?”

“Looks like it”, concluded Tasha, smiling at her friend. “You aren’t half bad at bed, Rhodey, good for you! Where did you learn the”, she made a circular motion with her finger, “the hips thing?”

“Spring break of my senior year at MIT”, replied the man, smiling smugly and she nearly gagged on her coffee.

“Not that girl with that brown bikini…”

“Aham.”

“The one who was by the salad bar?!”

“Yeps.”

“The one you told me was too old for me?”

“That one.”

“Fuck you, Rhodey.”

“You already did” he replied and she tossed a broccoli at his stupid face. They teased each other light-heartedly over the food and obscene amounts of coffee, until Tasha felt more or less awake. “So”, begun Rhodey, raising an eyebrow at her. “Steve.”

Tasha groaned and let her forehead fall to the table. “Why.”

“Well, you don’t seem to be freaking out as badly, anymore”, replied her friend, easily, “come to terms with the whole thing?”

“I don’t know”, she mumbled, but it wasn’t really true. Now that laziness, sleepiness and endorphins were wearing out, Tasha was beginning to feel increasingly guilty for the shit she had pulled on Steve last night, leaving the man alone without an word of explanation and… “does anyone know I’m here?”

“Yeah, don’t sweat it, he called this morning asking for you.”

“He _called?”_

“Yes.”

“Did you…?”

“I just told him you spent the night, c’mon, I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Thanks.”

“He sounded pissed.”

“Shit.”

“And worried.”

_“Fuck.”_

“He’s gonna kill you.”

“He will.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Call Pepper?” She asked, hopefully, looking up. Rhodey shook his head.

“She’ll kill you, too.”

“I’m dead, then.”


	18. He Can’t be That Mad.

In the end, Tasha decided she’d simply go home. Actually _planning_ a course of action meant sorting out her feelings and making A Decision, and that was something she was simply _not_ qualified to do. Instead, she decided to just roll with the punches. It had worked before.

Besides, Steve couldn’t be _that_ mad, could he?

“Tasha”, he said, when she stepped in the living room, “can I talk to you for a moment?”

Oh, yes. Yes, he could.


	19. This Has Obviously Sucked

The air around them was heavy and awkward and tingling with tension. 

Tasha leaned against a worktable, her heart hammering away in her chest, her thoughts a disarray of meek excuses and ways-out, and annoying remarks that wouldn’t stop popping up, such as noticing the shade of Steve’s eyes and wondering if he remembered she had bought him the clock he was messing with. His body was tense and fidgety, his gaze refusing to meet hers and the expectative alone might kill her if this lasted any more.

“Did you want to talk about something?” She asked, breaking the maddening silence.

“Yeah”, Steve’s fingers dig through his hair, and he stepped closer to her, triggering nearly every nerve in Tasha’s body. “Why did you do that?”

“Did what?” Replied Tasha, before she could stop herself, looking anywhere but him.

“You know very well what.” He crossed his arms, his lips pressed into a thin line, “you left me standing there with no explanation whatsoever and… and then you disappeared, and have you any idea how _worried_ I was?”

“I wasn’t _drinking”_ , snapped Tasha, automatically feeling her walls shot up, “and I was only gone for a night, Steve, by the love of God, I’m a big girl.”

“I know that you are an adult”, shot Steve back, “but you had a terrified expression on your face and then shot off on your own, what was I supposed to think?”

“Geez, I don’t know. That I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, maybe?”

“I’m your best friend, Tasha, I think I have a right to be worried about you.”

“Well, that’s all good and dandy, but that doesn’t make you the boss of me, Steve.”

“Why are you being so defensive?”

“I’m _not!”_

The silence fell again, hostile and full of unspoken things. 

“Was it because of what I said?”

Tasha looked up, and Steve had this pained, hopeful, embarrassed expression on his face and her stomach dropped to her knees.

“No”, she lied, very poorly. His fingers went through his hair again, making it a complete mess.

“Look, can we just…”, he sighed, frustrated, “just forget I ever said anything.”

Steve walks away. Tasha sits in a nearby stool and bangs her forehead on the worktable, waiting for the feeling to subside, but it never does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triple update this time because the chapters came out really short. Sorry about that, guys!
> 
> Also, I have JUST finished my other fic - now I just have to revise the last chapter and wait for my beta. WHEW. That was a long run.


	20. But then Again, my Life Does Suck

Things didn’t improve from there.

Steve is obviously royally pissed, and although everyone sends them weird looks, no one thinks it’s a good idea to ask. Nat raises her eyebrows pointedly at Tasha over the table, Clint stares confused at Phill, who for once has no idea what’s happening, Bruce is very discreet about the whole thing, and Thor has been warned not to ask. Tasha wants to run to Alaska and start a new life as a penguin caretaker. She really likes penguins. Penguins don’t give her disappointed looks.

They don’t let it get between them on the field, because there’s an old agreement that personal fights do not mean they don’t trust the other to keep bloodsucking octopus off each other’s back (it has happened). Iron Woman and Captain America are just fine.

Tasha and Steve are not.

They have had worse, true, but this has a new, frightening ring to it that makes the whole thing much more difficult. They haven’t fought over one specific issue, they have fought because they are in love and Tasha can’t deal with it, so Steve thinks she doesn’t love him back, and I mean, what _the hell,_ right? How do you make peace on that?

Everything is awkward and cold, and there isn’t an actual _problem_ Tasha can deal with. Alcoholism? That’s pie: stop drinking, and the fight is over with. There’s no approachable way to face _this_ , however, cause it’s just a huge hank of stupid _feelings_ , and it’s not about arguing, it’s about painful avoidance and distance and the loss of all that was fun about their friendship. And how can anyone fight back at _avoidance?_

Movie night gets so tense and obviously weird, the other Avengers stop dragging Tasha out of her workshop as they have done for years, because they really can’t put up with the elephant in the room. Tasha tries not to be too hurt _she_ was the one to get kicked out. It doesn’t work.

They come across each other now and then on the tower, and each time is the same uncoordinated tango to get out of the other’s way and pretend it never happened.

Steve doesn’t come down to the workshop anymore and so anything Tasha projects that’s meant for him gets to him through the hands of someone else.

Steve is out a lot more.

Tasha is at the workshop a lot more.

Their lives go on as scheduled, and nothing is left undone duo to their fight, still the force field that seems to be keeping them apart is tangible in its coldness.

The whole thing drags for about one month before someone gets a case of “I CAN’T STAND THOSE TWO ANYMORE” and calls on the heavy artillery.

“Tasha.”

Her tone of voice alerts Tasha immediately and she groans, dropping her tools. _Not Pepper._ She thinks, unhappy. _Why does it have to be Pepper?_

“Don’t you _dare_ send me to voicemail, Natasha Stark!” Adds the voice, swiftly, as if reading the brunette’s mind. “I know you are there. I’ll schedule board meetings at the first hours of the mourning for a _month_ if you dare send me to voicemail.”

Tasha’s shoulders shag, defeated, and she relents, hoping she’ll be able to sidetrack her best friend. It has never happened before, but then again, it’s never too late to hope. “I’m a _little_ busy here, Pepper”, she says, trying to sound annoyed.

“Bullshit. Why did you and Cap fight?”

Well, trust her to go straight to the point. _Shit_. “We didn’t.”

“Tasha.”

“Pepper.”

“Don’t you _Pepper_ me.”

“We _didn’t fight_ , okay?”

“Aham. And that’s why I’ve head desperate calls from all of your teammates pleading for help before they all implode from the awkwardness?” Snarks the ginger, promptly, just a tad bit acid.

 _Traitors_ , thinks Tasha, wildly, mutely vowing to kill every single one of them, even Nat, if it’s the last thing she does she’ll kill that freaky ginger meddler. _Fucking traitors_. “It’s not that important.”

“Aham.”

“We fight all the time, you know that.”

“I called Rhodey.”

 _All of them_. Slowly. And painfully. The bloodiest, the better. “Well, so what? I haven’t fought with Rhodey. What does Rhodey have to do with anything? Weren’t we talking about Cap? Seriously, Pepper, if you’re gonna be paranoid about my personal life you gotta stick with one friend, otherwise it gets really confusing and bad for your health.”

 _“Tasha”_ , he could picture Pepper rolling her eyes, shooting that not-amused look and crossing her arms. “He wouldn’t tell me what happened, but I know _something_ is going on, so spill.”

“But _Pepper…”_

_“Tasha.”_

“It’s not that important, really!”

“When you and Steve have a two-month long fight it’s _always_ important.”

“Steve is not the center of my universe you know.” She replied, suddenly _extremely_ annoyed. This was exactly why she hated being in love with him so much, making Steve so important as if she can’t function without him, well fuck it, she was fine before Steve Rogers and she was going to be just fine after him, too. “Just because I had a fight with him doesn’t mean I’m doomed to an eternity of unhappiness.”

“Of course he isn’t, Tasha”, Pepper sighs, patiently, “but he’s your best friend.”

 _“You_ are my best friend”, replies Tasha, stubborn. Pepper laughs.

“I thought I was your best _girl_ friend.”

“No such thing. A person can only have one best friend.”

“What about Rhodey?”

There’s a moment of silence. “I will not answer that question.” Her friend laughs again and Tasha can only be grateful no one will ever know she had slept with Rhodey. If she had known _one time_ and she would have been done with it she’d have tried _years ago_. Dang it. “Look, the point is that this is no big thing and I am okay. I am super. I am _swell.”_

“Aham”, repeats the ginger, unimpressed, “and that’s why you are talking as if you were born about ninety years ago?”

_“What?”_

“You always pick up Cap’s slang when you are thinking about him.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Tasha.”

“Pepper.”

“Okay, just, look”, there was this little huff of impatience on the other side of the line, “why did you fight? Did you do something, did he say something, did something happened…?”

“Nothing happened!”

“Was it because of the Avengers, the drinking, or was it, I don’t know, groceries?”

“We don’t fight over groceries, Pepper, we are not _married.”_

“Well, sometimes you certainly act as if you are!”

There was a pause.

“Tasha?”

“What?”

“Sharon and Steve have been broken up for a while now, right?”

“Yeah, so what?” A drip of cold sweat run down her spine.

“Did Steve try to make a move?”

“Pepper, you are officially making no sense at all. I’m gonna hang up, now.”

 _“Ohmygod,_ he did, didn’t he?!”

 _“Pepper”_ , whined Tasha, unhappy.

“What _happened?”_

“Okay, first,” she got up from where she had been sitting, “nothing happened, and if it _had_ happened, I cannot comprehend why you’d be making that happy voice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are we talking about the same person here? In which universe Steve and I are a good couple match, Pepper? It’s _Steve.”_

“And your point is…?” She could practically _feel_ the irony in her voice, “I think you and Steve would be a great couple, Tasha. Really.”

“You do?” Asked Tasha, because she was genuinely shocked. “Since when?”

“Well, the idea has crossed my mind off and on, you know”, secreted Pepper. “Everyone thought you’d kill one another when the Avengers begun, but you two clicked off amazingly. You are good for each other. And I’ve hardly ever met two people who got along as nicely as you two. When you aren’t trying to eat each other’s head, that is.”

“I still think you’ve smoked something.”

“Relationships aren’t made out of grandiose romantic moments, Tasha”, replied the ginger, calmly, “they’re made out of everyday things, and if I do remember correctly, you and Steve spent as much time crashed on the sofa doing nothing as you do saving the world. I don’t think it’d be the smoothest relationship in the world, but I also believe you’d manage to make it work. Somehow.”

“Huh”, Tasha stopped and stared into the distance, biting her lips. “Pepper?”

“Yes?”

“I might be, just a little bit, in love with Steve.”

“I suspected that.”

“That’s because you know fucking everything, it’s seriously creepy sometimes. We can only be grateful you have chosen to use your powers for the good. Or mostly. For good.”

“So, are you going to tell me what happened?”

Tasha threw herself on the little couch of the workshop, tired, and sighed. “He is pissed at me.”

Pepper made a friendly sound, comprehensive, and Tasha spilled the rest of the history on her typical fashion, with too many sidetracks and not enough actual narrative, but Pepper was patient, up until the moment when the brunette admitted to have left Steve hanging on the sidewalk.

“You did _what?”_ Hissed the ginger, “oh, Tasha…”

“I know, I know, I _know._ ” Replied Tasha, quickly, pressing the palms of her hands against her eyes “I fucking panicked, okay?!”

“And then you went to Rhodey’s place?”

“Yeah."

“Why?”

“Don’t ask.”

“I won’t”, complied Pepper immediately, “and that’s why Steve is pissed at you?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you apologize to him?”

“…weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell…”

“Oh, _Tasha.”_

“I just”, Tasha breathed deeply, because this was a bit overwhelming, this had been overwhelming from the moment she overheard that stupid conversation and she was so fucking _tired_ of avoiding Steve. She missed him. “I’ll screw this up, Pepper, you know I will.”

“That I don’t know.” Replied Pepper, stern, firm and final. “You’ve went through the past year, Tasha. Steve has seen you at your worst. You’ve put up with that, you two can face anything. I swear.”

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah, okay, but seriously, Tasha”, she had a light tone under her words that made the brunette smile, “you could not _possibly_ find someone more suitable for dealing with you than Steve.”

 _“That_ actually _makes_ sense”, admitted Tasha, staring at the ceiling, “which is incredibly bizarre.” There was a pause, “but maybe he _doesn’t want_ to deal with me.”

“He loves you, honey”, whispered Pepper, softly, “of course he does.”

“I hate it when you call me ‘honey’”, mumbled Tasha, like a kid.

“That’s because you always do whatever I say when I call you honey”, replied Pepper, easily.

“Mostly for good. _Mostly_ ”, repeated the brunette, chuckling. “Well, but then… what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Start by apologizing”, suggested her friend, “and then you could try telling him the truth. The one thing about the first time you realized you loved him would be a great touch.”

“Did I tell you that?” Moaned Tasha, cursing her loose mouth. Pepper laughed.

“You did”, she confirmed, kindly, “and please do that before Clint shoots either of you.”

“I make no promises” grumbled the woman, glaring at the ceiling.

“I have to go, now”, announced Pepper, “but Tasha?”

“Hum.”

“Steve is a lucky guy.”

A slow smile spread in Tasha’s face, hesitant and warm, “says you.”

“But I know everything, remember?” Remarked the ginger, witty. Tasha laughed. “Love you, honey.”

“Love you too, Pepperoni” said the brunette, softly, and her friend hang up.

Sigh.

Now what?


	21. Tasha is Capable of Good Decisions

As stated before, Tasha has a little voice that pops up now and then when she makes good decisions. Her own Jiminy Cricket you could say, except, don’t say it, because it’s a stupid ass comparison. It’s not like Jiminy Cricket at all. In fact, Tasha is known to nurse a certain amount of loath for the use of the expression “voice” when it comes to thoughts.

“They aren’t _voices”_ , she insisted, as Steve rolled his eyes. They were sitting at a bench in the park, the sun peeking through the clouds, “thoughts are electrical impulses. You can’t have a _voice_ in your head, never mind more than one, Steve, c’mom!”

“It’s a figure of _speech_ , Tasha”, he insists, amused. “It’s not supposed to be taken literally.”

“Well, it’s stupid. That’s what it is.”

So it’s in fact not as much of a voice, but a feeling that accompanies the thoughts. It shows up very rarely, only when Tasha is taking the possible best decisions of her life, and it has its evil cousin, the feeling that shows up when she knows, when she consciously realizes the huge shit she’s been doing. It was there on the day she stopped drinking, and as soon as it came up, Tasha decided, a decision too visceral to be taken back as it had happened before, to never touch alcohol again. And as the decision formed, the good feeling came back.

That’s why Tasha knows she’s doing the right thing when she decides to talk to Steve. The feeling is there. It’s pungent and certain, as present as it was when the miniaturized arc reactor begun to glow for the first time.

It doesn’t make it any easier.

Of course not.

But, hey, this was Steve. He was a decent guy, and he only refused to hear apologies when they were obvious shit. He listened when people tried. And he listened to Tasha.

“Steve”, called Tasha, poking his shoulder over the couch’s back, “can we talk?”

She had chosen the day carefully, just to make sure no one would walk on them having what could possibly turn into a very ugly scene or a very good one, and either way, she didn’t want to be interrupted. Nat was on a trip for a few days and Tasha had slipped in some cash so Clint would agree to be gone with Phill for the day. Thor was visiting Asgard, as he did the third of every month, and Bruce had been the most simple. Tasha had asked him and he had agreed without asking why. That’s Bruce for you.

Steve looked surprised, his blue eyes slightly alarmed, but he didn’t seem angry. He hesitated, then turned the TV off and coughed to clean his throat. “Sure.” He agreed, trying for a lighter tone, “what about?”

“Ahm”, Tasha circled the sofa, sitting at the center table, her knees safely kept away from touching Steve’s. “About that night.”

The man shifted on the couch, his hand going to the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Oh”, he says, simply, unsure, “right”.

“Yeah”, Tasha bits her lips and dropped her bomb on his laps. “I need to know something, Steve. What were you going to say before I run?”

He squints, thrown off by the direction the conversation is taking, and there’s hurt in his eyes and Tasha hates that expression, _hates it_ , hates it more when she knows she was the one to put it there. “Why do you want to know?” He asks, low and softly and hurt.

“It’s important”, replies Tasha, trying to impress this on Steve, that it is important, it is the most important thing right now.

“I don’t really want to talk about this, Tasha”, insists Steve, his body edging backwards away from her. “I thought we’d agreed to forget the whole thing.”

“It wasn’t the _only_ thing you forgot”, points out Tasha, and a little bubble of resentment bursts in her chest, “when was the last time you guys invited me for movie night, again?”

This manages to pass through and Steve immediately looks regretful, as he _should_ , because where do the family talk and the teammates stuff go when they choose to simply ignore that Tasha is still down in the workshop out of _convenience?_

“I’m sorry”, he says, and he means it, but Tasha is still pissed. “That wasn’t right on our part.”

“For damn sure it wasn’t.” She agrees, looking away. Steve reaches out and touches her arm, just the tips of his fingers against her elbow. His expression has softened, the walls gone a bit loose.

“I’m really sorry”, he repeats, the touch spreading a bit wider against her skin, “these last few months…” he gulped, and Tasha nodded.

“Sucked”, she finished, helpfully. “I know. And I’m sorry too. For the whole…” she gestured with her hand, “running away out of the blue thing.”

Steve agreed, biting his lip, and that was _always so distracting_. Damn his bottom lip. That thing was walking porn. Walking. _Porn._

“Steve”, she said, and held his wrists, squeezing slightly “please tell me. I swear it’s really important.”

He breathed deeply, once, twice, then freed his wrists and nodded.

“I’m not sure what I was going to say”, he admitted, uncomfortable. “it’s been some time. I was really… going to play it by ear, you know?” He shifted again, looking out the window, then back at her. “I was saying I’d fall in love for someone like you, right?” He asked, and Tasha nodded. “Well, I would.”

He stopped talking, and when the woman was beginning to think he wouldn’t proceed, he added: “I did.”

She looked at him, and about just a billion of different answers crossed her mind, from all possible approaches, different phrasings, varying tones, alternative postures. Somewhere on the back of her mind, she just wanted to kiss him.

“I would, too”, she ends up replying, and later on she has no idea why she picked that particular answer. “Fall in love for someone like you, I mean. I would.”

Steve holds his breath as audibly as if someone had dropped Thor’s hammer on top of him, his eyes widening, the blue sparkling so bright it lives up to every possible cliché ever written by the media. If Tasha ever thought of them as “clear azure”, she’ll never admit it, never, but it is a worthy description. His body shots forward, then he catches himself and jerks back, his hand flailing about a bit as if they don’t know where to touch, all awkward and eager and expectant.

“I did”, adds Tasha, in a puff of breath.

They meet each other halfway for the kiss.


	22. Brief Pause

Here are some of the reasons why Steve needs Tasha:

She balances him, in every way he needs to and has never realized before her. She’s a futurist, and he’s an old man, she’s completely outside, and Steve is all inside, but it might mostly be that their belief systems are so completely opposite from each other, and Steve _needs_ that, he needs someone to see the other side of things, no matter how frustrating and infuriating it is. 

Sharon is right, Tasha really is the only person who has the grounds to tell Steve to fuck off, and make him _listen_ when she does so, and take no crap from him, because she knows he’s wrong sometimes.

She gave him a home when he woke up in the future with nowhere to go.

She might know him better than anyone else in the world.

He can always rely on her.

She’s his best friend.

This many years later, sometimes he still has nightmares, and he’s always reminded of that first year, when they were at their worst and Tasha sat with him drinking coffee from a straw and keeping the monsters at bay with her mere presence. 

Iron Woman will always have Captain America’s back.

And here are some of the reasons why Tasha needs Steve: all of the above.

But of course, needing someone and loving someone don’t exactly always equal each other, and there are many more reasons as to why Steve loves Tasha (and vice-versa).

She’s funny and brilliant, and caring, dedicated, loyal, hard-working, bright and burning, a bit crazy now and there, impossible to foresee, full of life and energy, gentle and furious as it may go, affectionate, proud and witty and amazing.

Her laughter ties Steve’s stomach in a not.

Tasha has a hundred and one different smiles, and although he knows he’ll never be able to, Steve still is trying to document all of them, even the bad ones, the ones that were created and not born. His favorite varies according to the day, usually the one present at the moment, but some of them are special and he holds them dearer and closer to his memory. 

Tasha’s favorite smile of Steve’s is the one he gives her sometimes, for absolutely no reason, the one that says _you’re my favorite person_. She doesn’t know this, but she has a smile all of her own that she uses only to respond to his, and it isn’t true Steve smiles for no reason whatsoever. He smiles because every time she smiles back that one particular smile, his heart skyrockets to the sun and back on the space of a second.

It’s terrifying and addicting. 

He loves the way she bickers with her robots, following Dummy around the workshop gesturing wildly with a torch, but her fingers still stroke his joints absently when she’s not paying attention.

He loves her enthusiasm and when she babbles. He loves watching her when she’s silent. He loves when she sings (even though she’s horrible at it).

He loves the way they have obscene amounts of fun together, no matter where they are.

He’ll never admit it, but he finds it endearing when she manages to make a breakthrough in one of her project and starts cursing at the solved problem, yelling “suck it!” victoriously. 

Tasha cares. She cares about people, and cares fervently for those who are close to her and lets young kids poke at Iron Woman’s helmet and blames herself when things go wrong because she cares so much.  
She trailed behind Pepper like a little lost duck on the months before her marriage, not really sure how to deal with that latest turn of events and pestering the both with affirmations of her brilliant ability of match-making. Finally, Pepper told her to go plan a firework showcasing for the party or whatever and the only reason she didn’t dramatically regret it was because the display was beautiful and Pepper cried just a little bit, even if her and Nat had to practically wrestle Tasha into the bridesmaid dress.

She teases him.

She yells at him.

On their sparing sessions she has no qualms kicking him in a typical Nat fashion, the entire momentum of her body focused on one blow. Outside of their sparing sessions she won’t as much as flinch when Steve is furious and all up on her face.

Tasha doesn’t let anyone tell her how to live her life.

She sits upside down the couch and her face doesn’t even get flushed.

She refuses to give the media any satisfactions.

She takes off her helmet, even knowing it might save her life and keep her from getting poisoned, to give Steve mouth-to-mouth, and afterwards, her head on his lap, her ponytail falling loose, he doesn’t know if he wants to punch or kiss her.

He loves her fingers, which are strong enough to hold a hammer and drive it through a wall, but delicate enough to disentangle a maddening bundle of circuitry. 

The smug expression she has on her face when she manages to get Steve off-guard on their sparring sessions, the same one that colored her features when she knocked off a sandbag with a high kick and Nat even smiled in approval.

The way she talked about Yinsen for the first time, eyes lost examining a bottle of motor oil undergoing some kind of incomprehensible chemical process. The liquid looked amber, with flashes of ghostly green now and then, and boiled slowly on a glass tube. Her eyes reflected the lights and she seemed to be far away.

Her amazing inventions.

Her amazing intellect.

She’s amazing.

Tasha hates being carried princess style, but has no qualms about requesting piggy-back rides, because “if you are going to drag me off my lab anyway might as well be a gentleman about it”. It also never stopped him from carrying her to bed.

He loves the way she looks when she’s dressed up, heels that are a danger to her health, red lipstick, crazy hairdos and fake fingernails. Once he had nearly fainted when one of those got caught in the fabric of his shirt and he thought he had ripped it off. Tasha had laughed, then took pity on him before he fainted and explained she has to leave her nails short precisely to avoid incidents on the workshop, and that fake nails are the thing.

He loves it more when she’s _not_ dressed up and the truth is that Steve first fell in love with Tasha the day she gave him that picture of Peggy, just a little bit, but he knew, without realizing it, he was done for only considerably later and for no reason whatsoever.

Pepper was visiting, and Steve walked in the two of them, sitting upside down on the couch, heads touching, a bottle of champagne opened and three-quarters empty, bars of chocolate nearby and something unimportant airing on the TV set. They spotted him and greeted him and Pepper sat properly again as Tasha cheekily told Steve they had made Iron Woman heels, _cool, right?_ Then he realized what _she_ was wearing and had asked and Tasha had proudly displayed her Iron Woman _sneakers_ , straightening her legs up in the air.

“Aren’t those meant for kids?” Had asked Steve, amused.

“Had them make one for my size”, replied Tasha, incredibly smug, pedaling in the air to better show them off. They had little lights that flashed when she stepped and gold-sprayed laces and Tasha wore them until they were filthy, at which point, she simply ordered another pair. 

It was probably there, you know, when Tasha was kicking at his hips to show the lights going off and Pepper was telling her to sit like a human being and the brunette remembered she needed to run some tests on the reinforced clothing she was experimenting with for Steve uniform, so could he hop down her workshop later?, that Steve knew, but didn’t realize, he was completely and hopelessly in love with Natasha Stark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this fic, sometimes I get completely overwhelmed by the fact I'm writing a completely CANON couple, and then I just want to cry from happiness.


	23. For Now

The moment their lips touch, Tasha tries very hard to think of a suitable comparison that isn’t hopelessly cliché, but it’s really impossible. The only thing she can say is that it feels as if a blank screen has replaced her mind, the world narrowing down to Steve’s lips sharply, and there’s a second where she can feel everything painfully clear.

His hands holding her face, and they’re huge against it, his thumbs on her cheeks, his palm cupping the outline of her jaw, a finger brushes her eyelids and she closes her eyes. Her hands grab his shirt and squeeze, the fabric tangling under her touch, the pull yanking Steve forward towards her. Tasha tilts her head fifteen and something degrees upwards, Steve’s shoulders shag just a tad bit so he can lean down, and although he’s holding her he isn’t _pulling_ her, he’s only guiding her and she can do with that. Steve’s nose angles just slightly to the left so they won’t bump.

His breathing is heavy, and Tasha can hear the flux of air that goes in sharply when they’re close enough. He’s warm where she can feel it over his t-shirt and yielding to her pull.

They barely have to step in each other’s direction, already so close.

There’s a high-frequency buzzing in her ears, and Steve’s lips _do_ feel so good, the bottom lip smashed between hers, overlapping, pressing against each other with nearly no motion at all, just heat and closeness and touch and the buzzing hitches up, so high it _bursts_ , and then the world goes back to normal, expanding outwards violently again, except, wow, is this the same world she has just left for a moment here?

It doesn’t feel the same.

It’s a really tiny thing, but just as a speck of dust in your eyes or the pling of a leaking faucet at night, it was impossible to miss.

“Tasha”, whispered Steve, their lips just distanced enough so that the word breezed across her skin and sent shivers down her spine.

“Steve”, she replied, her hands letting go of his shirt. He smiled, large and sunny, his fringe falling on her forehead, his eyes shining, brushing his thumb against her cheek. Tasha’s hand trailed up his chest, no hurry, and Steve’s fell from her face, sliding around her waist, fingers spread firmly on the small of her back, “I should tell you something.”

“What?” asked Steve, blinking, and he couldn’t wipe that smile from his face, could he?

“We have the house all to ourselves today”, replied the woman, smiling back, a mischievous glim in her dark eyes, arms wrapping around the man’s neck. Steve laughed, and Tasha definitely could live with the rippling of his chest when he did that. 

The second kiss was slow and deliberate and caused small explosions of heat between them. Their bodies were pressed together, Tasha’s hand slowly tangling in his hair, Steve’s fingers grabbing her hip tight, and why, why had she postponed kissing Steve so far? Their lips moved against each other, tangling, exploring, and she let out a little whimper when he run his tongue against the back of her teeth, backing away with her upper lip trapped between his, only to deepen the kiss again, Tasha moving around him, not sure anymore who was in control here when there was so much touch, warmth and sensation. Wanting started to build up on Tasha’s belly, cause she never wanted to stop kissing him, and at the same time she wanted to rip Steve’s clothes off him.

Tasha starts backing up and Steve follows her and they find their way to the bedroom – his or hers, they can’t be bothered to check – trying their best not to part lips for even a second, accidently knocking into walls and laughing lowly and cutting each other’s laughter with another deep, mind-shattering kiss.

The door closed behind them and Tasha had to back up for air, their bodies tangled, one leg thrown across Steve’s hip, her head against the door as Steve kisses her neck, his lips knowingly brushing and exploring from her ear, down the curve of her jaw, at the base of her throat… her breath goes out, and she whispers his name without realizing it. They back off to the bed, and as Tasha lays down Steve’s eyes are on hers and she’s caught off guard by the intense expression in them.

“I love you so much”, he whispers, and it grabs Tasha by the heart, that same expression he had on his face years ago when she gave him Peggy’s picture, the same that she’d been telling herself for years it was just Cap being Cap, but it isn’t. He only ever looks at _her_ that way. It has a new depth to it now, a darker shade of blue and want and Tasha’s hand slide under his shirt, nodding breathlessly.

“I love you, too, Steve” she murmurs, and the way he smiles at it, as if it’s way too wonderful to believe, makes Tasha get up on her elbows and kiss him again.

Their clothes come off slowly, as if they had never touched each other before or seen each other naked, which couldn’t have been further away from the truth. Still, it feels completely different now, it _is_ different and Tasha feels no need to rush Steve as his hands travel up her waist leisurely, leaving no piece of skin untouched, following the trail of his fingers with his lips as he hoists her t-shirt over her heard. When Steve reaches the Arc Reactor, Tasha’s heart speeds up briefly, self-preservation instincts kicking in, but he’s careful with it, running his fingers along the edge where the scar tissue is thicker, pressing a kiss right in the center of it before he moves on and she whispers lowly if it isn’t pressing too hard against his chest and he says he doesn’t mind.

Tasha unbuttons his pants and between kisses and touches and tracing each other’s lines and the rustling of clothing being removed they are entangled, bodies touching everywhere and Steve moans against her lips and it sets her nerves on fire. The carefulness is thrown out of the window and suddenly then can’t get enough of each other, nails scratching, hands grasping tight, tugging at each other’s hair, lips clashing, and it spikes up so fast it makes her head spin.

Tasha is kissing his neck, his shoulder, leaving small bite marks all across it and Steve’s face is buried in her throat, breathy moans with half meanings burning her skin, and her legs are wrapped around his waist as he shifts his weight on top of her and thrusts in and Tasha curses and Steve kisses her and her hips bulk against his and it’s a good thing that the rooms are soundproofed because she never though Steve would be _loud_ in bed, what with the lack of privacy on war times, but, what was she thinking about again?

She dug her fingers into the back of Steve’s neck as they moved against each other, foreheads touching, eyes flicking to stare at each other every now and then, deep black against deep blue, and then their eyelids fell closed again, because there was just so much to feel, adding visual input was overwhelming. The rhythm goes faster and deeper, broken whispers of approval leaving their lips and then Steve is digging into her and Tasha throws her head back, arching against him and his name falls from her lips and her whole body screams. 

Steve manages not to crush her, leaning his weight on his forearms and Tasha must admire him for it, ‘cause she can’t muster strength in her body to move a pinky, let alone sustain all of that Super Soldier physique. Breathing hard, Tasha manages to scoot over to the side a bit and Steve settles next to her, and her mind registers that they’ve wondered into one of the guest rooms. It had probably been the closest.

Steve’s hand sneaks around her waist, warm and already so familiar, and Tasha looks up to find him smiling that damned favorite-person smile and although there’s still a pressure of irrational panic pressing at the back of her conscience about this whole thing, for now Tasha is blissfully happy to cuddle away the afternoon. 

She turns on her side and kisses him, the noodle feeling already taking over her limbs, her heart running around in confused and utter joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOUR CHAPTERS IN A ROW. Just because I love you all. Srsly, I felt bad for leaving you hanging, so. Yes. I'm awesome.


	24. It Could Work

It’s the end of the afternoon and they are half-heartedly thinking about getting something to eat. They had wandered off the room some time ago when Steve’s super-sped-up metabolism had started demanding his attention, grabbing a mountain of left-overs that tended to pile up at the fridge and ate at bed, Tasha’s head laying on Steve’s shoulder because he was very strict about not eating lying down.

“Really, Steve”, she had rolled her eyes, picking up her meat with her chopsticks easily, a skill the man had never quite mastered, “I’m not an infant eating peanut butter by the spoonful, I won’t _choke.”_

“You speak while you eat. _I bet_ you’d choke”, replies Steve, raising an eyebrow. 

“I can eat while running five different calculations _and_ welding the suit’s chest plate, you know. I have, actually. Haven’t chocked.”

“But you do all of that standing up.”

“Not always, nopes.”

“How exactly…” and Steve is interrupted when Tasha kisses him, because isn’t it simply great when you can combine business and pleasure? 

Right now, though, red light sipping in the bedroom, they don’t truly feel like moving. Steve is laying down, a messy, improvised pile of pillows keeping him just slightly sitting, and Tasha resting on top of his chest, one arm tucked under her chin so she can angle her face just right, the other hand holding Steve’s loosely, their fingers intertwined. Steve’s fingertips are running up and down her back, following the line of her spine, the touch just light enough to leave goosebumps in its wake. 

Tasha is in love with those fingers now, and she sees no reason to disturb their trail on her skin. Steve tilts his head, his eyes running over her face, his expression a mix of his artist look and his lovebird look, a soft curve to his lips. She can live with that look. 

“You’re smiling like a total sap”, informed Tasha, smiling back. Steve laughed, putting her hair behind her ear gently.

“Just happy”, he murmured, his hand resting against the curve of her neck. Tasha hummed contently, pressing her cheek to his pulse. “What are you thinking about?” Inquired the blonde, under half-open eyelids.

“’m not thinking about anything”, replied the woman, raising one eyebrow. Steve smiled.

“You’re always thinking of something, Tasha”, he argued, playing with their linked hands.

“My thoughts come in many layers. I don’t need to be thinking about something to think about that thing. I’m an onion, Steve. I’m _layered.”_

“Like an onion?”, replied the man, smiling largely. Tasha laughed.

“Ohm, little Stevie has come so far ever since his first flying monkey reference”, she said, pinching his cheek, “I’m so proud of you.”

Steve laughed along and laid further down the bed, their faces coming closer, shifting to settle down better.

Of course, however, Tasha _was_ thinking of something: there was still a small part down on the back of her brain who kept waiting for an alarm clock to go off and so she would wake and never have been confessed to and have never spent the day on bed with Steve Rogers. It kept pressing on the rest of her brain to panic about the whole thing, to remember why this was a terrible idea and the many ways in which this could crash and burn.

The rest of her brain, however, just told it to shut the hell up.

“So”, Tasha tossed her hair back and smiled, “the Iron Woman sneakers?”

Steve blushed, smiling embarrassed, “I didn’t fall in love with you for the Iron Woman sneakers”, he replied, rolling his eyes, “it’s just that, I thought about that a lot, you know, after Sharon and I… broke up.” He took a breath, his hand closer to her skin now, “do you remember your welcoming party?”

“You mean the Back-From-Rehab-Party? Yeah”, agreed Tasha, and after a brief, loud fight inside her head, added, “I overheard you two.”

“You _did?”_

“Yes, yes, yes, _I’m sorry”,_ answered the brunette, hurriedly, “I didn’t mean to, and I wasn’t sneaking around your relationship, it’s just that you and Sharon ran off the party, Pepper got worried, I _told her_ you were probably making out, but she wouldn’t listen to me, so she chased me off the living room to go look and I heard Sharon speaking my name, really, you can’t blame me, she works for SHIELD, overhearing when she talks about me is pure survival instinct.”

Steve sighed deeply, “did you hear the whole thing?” He asked, lowly.

“No”, she shook her head, “only, you know, the part where me being an alcoholic mess for a year ruined your relationship.”

“You didn’t…!” He stopped, leaning on an elbow to sit straighter. Tasha got up, sitting and leaning across his hip, one hand on the mattress to steady herself, so they were both half-sitting, half-standing, but still touching. “That’s why I say you have selective hearing.”

“And I keep telling you, a human being can’t possibly survive my job _without_ selective hearing”, replied Tasha, raising an eyebrow.

“Did you hear the part where Sharon said that _part_ of it was you, and what she actually meant was that part of it was the way _I_ acted when it comes to you, and that the other part was us being in love with each other’s ideas as much as we were in love with each other?” Inquired Steve, giving her his serious look, “the _biggest_ part of it, actually.”

“You dated for three years”, replied Tasha, for God only knows what reason.

“On and off”, observed Steve. “And it really… I don’t regret dating Sharon. She’s a wonderful girl and it was good. But at some point, we weren’t together anymore because we _wanted_ to be together, we were together because of… inertia. Because we had no reason _not to_. And that’s really not a good reason for dating someone.” 

“And then last year?” Asked the brunette, quietly.

“And then last year…” Steve bit his lips, “and then last year, my best friend took precedence over my girlfriend in everything, which isn’t really what a good boyfriend does.”

Tasha tilted her head sideways, blowing Steve’s fringe off his forehead. She remembered when they were going through the phase where she didn’t think she had a problem, but everyone else did, and they had already dropped the pretense they hadn’t a schedule for Tasha Sitting Duty. The woman had hated every moment of it, and invested a considerable effort in ditching them all, but Steve seemed to be there _all the time_. She had snarked at him once or twice, asking him if he had lost a bet or something to get so many turns – it had taken Steve a long time to admit he wasn’t there out of wanting to spend time together, but even then his answer had never changed – “I’m here because I want to be”.

“So Sharon was right?” murmured the brunette, “about everything?”

“Pretty much”, admitted Steve, embarrassed, “and then I started to think, you know… about you. And I realized”, his hand cupped the beck of her neck, his eyes intense and serious and passionate, “you are the most important person in my life, Tasha.”

“When I woke up, and after we were done trying to kill each other, you gave me a home. Avengers Tower. But also being able to just go down to your workshop, or wake up at the dead hours of the night and sit down with you, or going to the amusement park, it meant more to me than I can ever explain. And you never really stopped. You’re the one person that my life always gravitates back to no matter what, the only one who’s right there with everything that matters.”

“And I kept thinking about it”, breathed Steve, sitting up straighter so he could come closer, “and I kept remembering all the times when I just knew I’d be lost without you, and some of them popped out, and I remembered the Iron Woman sneakers, because…”, he gulped, “earlier that day, your communications had died for a moment, we lost sight of you, and I thought…”

Tasha is only looking at Steve, her heart hammering in her chest and the same mantra repeating stupidly in her mind: _me too, me too, me too_. For once, everything he is saying is making perfect sense, falling side-by-side with everything that had crossed her mind ever since that party – all that happens between them ridiculously mutual. 

Every time one of the moves, they run into the other, don’t they?

And Tasha remembers it now Steve has mentioned it: she had forgotten that afternoon before giving Pepper the heels, for it had been unimportant from her point of view. They had been out on an overseas mission, tracking down a maniac to an oil platform in the middle of the ocean. She had been knocked out of the sky, plummeting into the water, her com link going mute until she managed to surface again.

“The suit is water proof”, said Tasha, squeezing Steve’s waist reassuringly, “I had secured it to work underwater before the mission. I was totally fine.”

“I know that now”, he let out a long breath, “but I didn’t when you went under, so for a second…”, he shrugged, “it happens to us all the time, but when we came back and you were completely fine and being you, and after that scare, I just, I realized how happy I was that I had met you.” Steve smiled, looking live a pinning thirteen-year-old. “I still am happy.”

Tasha slid towards him, wrapping her arms around him, “you made me panic for a moment, you know”, she said, the voice on the back of her head losing its volume for now. Tasha knew it’d be back, knew it’d probably be years before it stopped nagging her, and maybe it never would, but if she could keep it down – if Steve would never stop being this huge sap – that’d work well enough. “Does it ever occur to you that we need each other too much?”

“Now and then, when something happens and I get paralyzed with the idea of losing you”, confessed Steve, their forehead touching.

“Geez, Capsicle, and how the hell do you deal with that?” She raises one eyebrow, “aren’t you supposed to be the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan?”

He groans, “Why that song.”

“Yeah, okay, that was mean, to quote Bruce, sorry. But really. How?”

Steve shrugged, “I guess I just accepted that it is how it is. I’ve been in love with you for years, now, Tasha. I think my heart is pretty darn stubborn.”

She rolled her eyes, _“You_ are pretty darn stubborn, Rogers.”

“Says you, Stark.”

She kissed him. “Are you shutting me up by kissing me?” Chuckled Steve when they broke apart.

“That’s half the reason”, smiled Tasha, “you can’t blame me. Been waiting to be able to do that for many years.”

Steve blinked various time, as if water had fallen on his eyes – Tasha could testimony, she had seen him under rain enough times. “You have?” He asked, surprised.

“Oh, _fuck”_ , said Tasha, blinking back, “shit, I didn’t… I didn’t give you background, did I? Ahm”, she made a face, shifting into Steve’s lap for comfort, “remember how we both had insomnia more then we actually slept back at the first year as a team?”

“And you drunk coffee through a straw, as if drinking _more_ coffee would help you sleep?” Added Steve, amused.

“My body runs on caffeine, Steve. When it lacks it, it goes into emergency mood, and my survival instincts won’t let me sleep”, she poked a finger on his chest, “may I continue, Mr. Sassypants?”

He chuckled, “go on, please.”

“I doubt you’ll remember that night specifically, I don’t even remember what we were watching, but we were eating leftover pizza, and I was using your tight as a toe-warmer, then I teased you over a hot actor and, you know”, she shrugged, raising her eyes at an expectant Steve and remembered that night, the half-awaken feeling that came with bad insomnias, the comfortable heat on her feet, her favorite smile. “For a moment there, I thought that I loved you so much.”

Steve’s expression melts, open and defenseless, and here’s one thing Tasha loves about him: it’s so much easier accepting someone loves you when they’re so exposed around you.

“But you’ve never…” murmurs Steve, unsure, his eyes flicking worriedly at hers, shifting with tension.

“I’m pretty good at denial, Steve”, pointed out Tasha, squeezing his shoulder to make him relax, “I didn’t even think about it again until I overheard you and Sharon, and then I still tried to ignore it, but… seems I am as stubborn as you are.”

The blonde laughs and she smiles at him, and all this feels absurd, a bit surreal, and all in all too good to be truth, but, hey, Steve and Tasha are in a relationship, crazier things have happened.

“So let me get this”, Steve raises his eyebrow, holding back laughter, his arms resting easily on Tasha’s hips, “we have been secretly in love with each other for years? And no one knew? Not even us?”

“Pretty much.”

They stare at each other for a while and then begin chuckling, going limp when the laughter grows and they fell on top of each other on the mattress, faces close, bodies touching and bellies hurting as they try, unsuccessfully, stop laughing. 

Steve passes his arm around her and kisses her. 

Slowly, the laughter dies away, substituted by touches and deep kisses, Steve’s fingers tangling in Tasha’s hair, her hands at his waist, the room only filled by the muted noises of their breathing and the soft moans as their lips moved.

“Can we make this work?” Breathed Tasha, into Steve’s mouth, her eyes blinking open. “Cause seeing as we are both too stubborn to stop loving each other, we’ll have to.”

Steve nodded, pushing her hair away from her face, “we will. We saved the world a couple times. Got Thor into a suit. This couldn’t be harder.”

Tasha chuckled, “I doubt that.”

“Well”, he smiled, “we’re still trying, right?”

“Right”, agreed the brunette, her arms around his waist, “cause we are crazy like that.”

“Does that mean I get to take you out for dates?” Asked Steve, hopeful, a glim of enthusiasm on his eyes. Tasha blinked, dropping her eyes for a moment.

“Sure thing, Cap”, she breathed, smiling, “but you’re still not allowed to pay for everything.”

“Deal”, whispered Steve, locking their lips again. Tasha rolled on top of him and quietly thanked her own brain for thinking of coming prepared. 

Well, you know what? They had saved the world, unlikely become the unspoken leaders of the Avengers and managed to keep the Earth from dissolving into a pool of disaster for four years, been best friends throughout it all and not let alcoholism, different life philosophies, nasty fights after stressful weeks, venomous words, villain plots, or rights over the remote control ruin it. 

They were Iron Woman and Captain America.

They had loved each other at the back of their minds all this long, and it had worked so far, hadn’t it?

Maybe – just maybe – they could actually pull this out. But even if they couldn’t, Tasha could not think of a single reason that would make her give up on trying.


	25. I Can Live With That

Tasha walks out of Steve’s bedroom, to where they had moved eventually, only one quarter of the way to awareness, and only clothed because she had trained herself to dress while _asleep_ ever since everyone had moved in.

She bumps into Steve on the kitchen, quite literally _bumps_ into him, her face against his chest.

“Hummmm”, she purrs, happily, passing her arms around his waist and hooking her hands into his back pockets, “nice”, approves the brunette, prompt relaxing into him. Steve laughs and hooks a hand around her waist to keep her from falling.

“Good morning for you too, Tasha. I was going to check if you were still breathing”, he kids.

“Good morning, Stark.” Echoes a voice from behind Steve. Tasha blinks her eyes open and peers behind the man slowly, like a suspicious cat. Coulson is sitting at the kitchen table, Clint perched to his side cuddling into his shoulder as is usual, even more asleep than Tasha. Phill has one arm around him while the other somehow manages to feed him pancakes and read the morning SHIELD files.

“What are _you_ doing back here?” She hisses, moving Steve around protectively, cause Coulson’s efficiency so early in the morning is deeply disturbing.

Clint yawns and Phill moves him closer, accommodating him better, “we live here”, he says easily, raising his eyebrows at them. “Remember?”

“Gonna kill him when he wakes up”, mumbles Tasha, shooting an angry look at Clint. Of course he’d come back earlier than she’d bribed him into. Sucker.

“Good morning”, greets Bruce, entering the kitchen full clothed, shaved and ready for the day.

“You _too_ , Bruce?” Moans the brunette. “Why can’t you guys be gone for more than a day?”

“Sorry, Betty had a convention”, says him, apologetically, sitting down on his usual spot. “But I’m glad to see you have worked things out”, he adds.

“Hummm…?” Yawns Tasha, as Steve maneuvers her into a stool.

“He means us”, he explains, “I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

“Good morning”, calls out Nat, entering the kitchen with her SHIELD travelling bag still on her shoulder. Tasha moans loudly.

“They are doing it on purpose. _I know it.”_ She tells Steve, darkly.

“Good to have you back, Nat”, says the man, collecting the coffee from the machine, “you want some?”

“Thanks, Steve, I’ve been up for five hours”, she agrees, grabbing a mug, “what’s up with Stark? She seems in an worse mood than the usual”, adds the ginger, rubbing Clint’s nape as a hello. He purrs and wakes a bit more, at least long enough to bat his eyelashes at her.

“Tasha was hoping for a bit more of… privacy”, explains Bruce, diplomatically, eating his healthy cereal.

Clint wakes up at that, and he and Nat simultaneously look at Steve, than at Tasha, then at Steve, than at each other. Then Nat walks up at Steve, swiftly unbuttoning the first buttons of his shirt.

“HEY!” Exclaims Tasha, bolting from her seat, “hands off my man, Romanoff!”

“Is that _Steve’s_ tank top?” Inquires Clint, grabbing the fabric of Tasha’s t-shirt as she passes through him.

 _“Yes”_ , says the woman, reaching Steve and pulling him back to the table, away from the russian spy, but not before her teammate spots the bite marks.

“Well, that’s an interesting turn of events”, says Nat, sitting at Clint’s other side and giving them one of her disturbing knowing looks.

Steve cleans his throat, “well, I suppose you should know, as our team---“

 _“Greetings_ , my friends!” Booms Thor, entering the kitchen, “it is my deep pleasure to find you all well as I return from my brief absence. Has anything worthy of notice transpired while I was always?”

“Steve and Tasha did it”, says Clint, shortly.

“Excuse me?”

“They had sex”, clarifies Nat.

“Agent, stop embarrassing Steve to death”, chimes in Phill as Steve blushes deeply.

“My friends!” Says Thor, smiling wild, “I’m pleased to know you are no longer in hostile terms!”

“Yeah, yeah, Steve and I are not fighting anymore”, mumbles Tasha, drinking her coffee. They share a look and she sighs, “yeah, just tell them. Whatever, can’t even scratch your ass without everyone knowing in this place.”

“As I was saying”, proceeds Steve, “Tasha and I had an… argument…”

“Nasty, petty fight”, corrects the brunette, leaning against him.

“That”, admits the man, “over our relationship some months ago, and we are sorry it has affected the team.”

“And I want to know who was the tell-tale who run to rat me to Pepper.” Adds Tasha, shooting a look at all presents, “and why _Pepper?_ Why no one rats Steve to Sharon or Sam or something? Does it occur to any of you it takes two to fight?”

“On that note”, says Steve, putting an arm around her for support and assuming his leader voice “I also think we own Tasha an apology for movie night. We have been alienating her, that wasn’t fair, and she’s right, I was equally as guilty of this fault.”

The team shares a brief look and one by one they apologize, overlapping each other in their dissonant tones and phrasing.

“Yeah, yeah, you are lucky I like you bunch”, says Tasha, but she can’t stay mad when Bruce is giving her those eyes. “I still think it was dirt to call Pepper, though, be warned.” She gives them a stern look to mark her point and gets up to get more coffee.

“Well, but anyway”, Steve smiles at her back, before turning back to everyone else, “we, hum, have made peace last night, and I think, as our teammates, you should be the first to know, Tasha and I are dating.”

A murmur spreads through the table, and Tasha smiles to herself, concentrating on the coffee machine as she listens to it.

“Really?” Clint sounds genuinely surprised, “well, it was _about time!”_ He grins at Tasha and mouths silently, “how’s he at bed?”

Tasha mouths back, “I’m never telling, Barton”, before sitting back.

“That’s great, guys”, says Bruce, softly, “I’m happy for you two.”

“We might have to press some red buttons at SHIELD, but I think it’s great”, says Nat, but she smiles at Tasha when no one is looking.

Thor seems delighted by the news, and he gets up to hold them into bone’s dust. Everything turns into pure chaos, then, as everything always is on that kitchen, and Tasha is just thinking things went back to their mad normal when Steve leans in to kiss her, and ah, no, better than normal, actually.

She turns around, hooks an arm around his neck and kisses back, and if all her mornings start like this from now on, she can live with that. He’s giving her dozens of small kisses, smiling through it, and it already feels as natural as hanging out on the workshop or eating pizza after missions.

“Can I carry you to the bedroom?” He whispers, one hand sneaking to her leg.

“I’ll let you get away with that for now”, agrees Tasha, and as he hoists her up princess style and their teammates tell them to go get a room, she remembers briefly of thanking Pepper when she has the time.


	26. What Was I Saying Again?

Two weeks later, Tasha finds Steve sitting at the sofa, his back against the arm, sketching absently at his notebook. She smiles and walks up to him, resting a hand at his forehead and pushing his head back to land a kiss on his lips.

“Hey, there”, says Steve, smiling up at her, “how are your bruises?”

“Bruising.” Replies the woman, circling him to sit on his lap.

Steve readjusts, shifting and opening his arms so she can settle in better, and Tasha tucks her head under his chin comfortably. They cocoon in each other for a moment, relaxing after a truly shitty couple of weeks. Every villain in the vicinity had decided it was a good time to try and conquer the world, and they had been tossed around, doused with stuff, hit by unpleasant and somewhat obscene missiles, had to put up with megalomaniacal speeches and hours at medical. It was just Tasha’s life that right after she started dating Captain America the world decided to go insane. 

They were both in bad shape. But then, it wasn’t an abnormal occurrence.

“How’s the armor?” Questioned Steve, his hands rubbing circles between her shoulders.

“To the right”, replied Tasha, pressing back against the contact “a bit lower… _ohgodyes,_ right there, I love you, never leave me”, she gushes out, her muscles giving out, because this feels really great.

“I won’t”, replies Steve, simply, and if possible enveloping her tighter. Tasha smiles into his chest.

“The armor will be better than I will”, answers the brunette, as he keeps working on her back, “JARVIS is running some diagnosis, all the damage is very small and acute, I better wait for him or I’ll do more damage than good. That or… hmmmmmm”, she closes her eyes, pleased.

“Or you will be overrun by the need to ‘do all the things’ and completely renew it?” Completes Steve, directly quoting her. “Usually, doesn’t that mean you’d be downstairs covered in oil already?” 

“Usually I don’t have: A, more bruises than I can count”, replies Tasha, raising a finger “and mind you, I can’t count them because I can’t actually _turn around_ to see all of them, that’s how profitable I am right now. B, a time limit to get the armor running, if the last two weeks are anything to go by and C,” She shifts in his lap so he’ll move his hands a bit farther towards her neck, “a lap to sit on.”

He laughs again, caressing the small hairs at her nape, “well, I’m not complaining.” He says, easily, light hearted, affectionate.

“Of course not, that super serum body of yours never get bruises”, sighs Tasha.

“No, but it does get extremely tired”, replies Steve. “Right now? I don’t feel like moving. Ever again. In my entire life.”

She chuckles, “let’s not do it, then. Let’s just stay here”, proposes the brunette and he hums in agreement. 

For a while, they are comfortable with silence, Steve working sore spots at her back (and there are many of them). The tension dissipates, evaporating like water against hot metal, leaving Tasha pleasantly noodle-ish and melted against the blonde. He slumps against the couch equally relaxed, resting his face against her head, a hand stroking Tasha’s tight softly.

Her head starts wondering away, cause it never really stops working, and when there’s nothing in her immediate surroundings to distract herself with, it goes looking in the depths of memories for something to dwell in. Tasha waits for it to uncover something unpleasant and ruin the calm, as it has done for years, and been the true culprit as to why she cannot stand still, waits for it and tenses, ready to fight a bad remembrance, except…

There’s Steve fighting against enemy agents, always careful where his shield hits, taking them out without killing, moving through them swiftly as Tasha keeps one of the other groups from approaching this one to offer reinforcements, aiming and diving and dividing, her attention scattered throughout many fronts. Nat is inside, trying to get the information they need and Clint is backing her up. That week Bruce is out from a head injury and Thor is away dealing with diplomatic problems at Asgard. It’s just Tasha and Steve fighting outside, and this is still their first year, the grace that grew between their moves not yet present, their bodies not yet aware of each other.

Then, the bunch of wackos comes up with fucking missile shooters, and the calculations spring up in Tasha’s head as swiftly as they do on the suit’s interface. She spots Steve still fighting, oblivious to them, counts their numbers, observes their positions and estimates their trajectory, speed. The answers are laid out in front of her, and with them ready, she does not think further.

Sweeping down, Tasha had grabbed Steve, a missile missing him by inches and, avoiding two others more, threw him at the structure’s roof, trusting his capacities to not get squashed, before the fourth and last projectile hit her square in the back.

Afterwards, Steve doesn’t even wait for them to be back at Avengers Tower: he corners her between the threes, Tasha’s helmet under her arm, her hair on its ponytail, sooth and blood across her cheeks and they yell at each other. He’s pissed that she’d throw herself on front of him this way, says she could have simply yelled at him to watch out, and Tasha’s ears ring because she knows she’s done what was best and most effective and less likely to get them killed.

She interrupts his speech aggressively, stating exactly that, and why the fuck was he acting all superior on her, thinking she did what she did for the fun of it?

“It was _suicidal!”_

“It was _practical!”_

“You almost got yourself killed!”

“I saved _your ass_ from being burnt to ashes!”

The arguing picks up speed, ferocity and volume, wild gesturing, shoving and low growls as they talk on top of each other, bodies tensing.

“You can’t _do that_ , Stark, you can’t just dive in the way of anything trying to kill me or you’ll get blown up to pieces, and this isn’t the first time you do it!”

“I DO IT BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT’S THE BEST OPTION”, rages Tasha, finally out of patience, “I run _calculations_ , Rogers, I analyze the fucking situation, I measure the options, and I pick up the one that’s less likely to end in everyone _dying_ , and I pick up the one with less damage involved!”

“Taking the damage yourself isn’t choosing the less damage involved!” Retorts Steve, his voice rough from frustration.

“Sometimes _it is!”_ Hisses the brunette, “it is, because I’m under protective armor and you’re under fucking _spandex!_ If I hadn’t gotten you out of there, you’d have been crushed by one of the missiles don’t matter where you dodged to, _I KNOW_ , I saw them, I saw their trajectories, and by getting you the fuck out of there, I only got one missile on me, which didn’t do much damage, _BECAUSE I WAS IN THE FUCKING ARMOR, ROGERS!”_

They stop, breathing heavily, their eyes nearly shooting fire at each other. “So the question is, do you trust my bloody judgment or you don’t?” Snarls Tasha, anger flooding her veins.

 _“Fine”_ , grows Steve, his chest coming up and down heavily, _“but”_ , he adds, strictly, “under a condition.”

“What?” She asks, begrudgingly. 

“You are more important to this group than you realize, Tasha”, he replies, leaning towards her, “I understand when you say you take the better choice, but you _still_ take your own safety much less seriously than you should. I know you are under the armor”, he adds, when she motions to speak, “but you still get hurt, and you still take too many risks, and sometimes you think it is worthy it, but I don’t. I don’t think it was worth getting you injured half the times you say it was. So I will thrust your judgment only as long as you promise me to be more mindful about the risks for yourself.”

Tasha rolls her eyes, annoyed to no end, “this is pointless.”

Steve grabs her elbow firmly and yanks her just a centimeter close, even with the armor, with no hesitation. “Promise me”, he repeats, his blue eyes deadly serious, his mouth tight with stubbornness. She stares at him.

“Fine”, she agrees, yanking her arm off his grip, “I promise.”

It isn’t the last time they have that fight, Tasha isn’t sure it is even the first, but it’s there, neatly saved in the recesses of her brain that stillness is messing with.

Steve stirs under her, her back long ago relaxed enough that he’d stopped massaging it as much as caressing it. He lets his hand fall to her hip, fingers sneaking under her shirt only enough for skin contact. His hips roll so he can pull her farther into the couch, as he puts his legs up on it, back slacking against the arm, and Tasha realizes he might be about to fall asleep. She is careful not to move about too much, instead dipping her had back so he she can rest her face on the curve of his neck, stretching her legs along with him so her back is less likely to start hurting again. 

Another memory surfaces, and they are at Avenger’s tower, at the living room, and Bruce is there along with Betty, Thor and Jane. Steve looks embarrassed around his can of soda, blushing and stammering and Tasha is leaning across the sofa poking him and asking why. Betty is reading a book, siting barefooted and relaxed next to Bruce’s chair and leaning into his leg. The brunette is pretty sure that leg has been asleep for seven point forty-five minutes by now, but his friend seems intent on not disturbing his girlfriend in any way, a hand resting against the curve of her neck.

Tasha will never cease to be a bit amazed and a lot baffled by their relationship. She’s never quite sure of how that works, but she’s acutely aware of Bruce’s reactions to her, the way he looks at her when he thinks she can’t see, the way they seem to mirror each other’s body language. Over the years, when the tabloids run out of gossip and decided to speculate on everyone’s love life (much to Steve’s dismay), they had tried to throw the two women against each other, claiming some sort of “unresolved tension” between Tasha and Bruce.

 _“Ewwwww”_ , said the brunette, reading the headlines over Clint’s shoulder, “What are they talking about? I can’t marry him! He’s my friend! That’d be so weird.”

“Lion King.” Had called Steve, not even looking up from his paper. 

“Good catch, Cap”, had chuckled Tasha, as Bruce made horrified faces at the tabloid.

“But I don’t- we never! - you and Betty don’t-“

“Relax, Bruce”, smiled her, ruffling his hair, “I adore Betty, she cusses at moronic taxi drivers and makes you look like you’ve won the lottery. The only way I’d ever get between you two was if you guys decided to spice up the relationship.”

“Seriously, Stark?” Says Clint, looking back at her ironically, as Steve and Bruce nearly die from embarrassment “threesome jokes? You are a shame to the bisexual community. You’re perpetuating the stereotype!” He adds, dramatically, slapping the table in fake outraged disbelief.

“Whatever, Barton, I’m a slut, it doesn’t get any worse than that.” She retorts, snickering, and before you know it the article has been forgotten.

Tasha moves again, carefully, her legs intertwined with Steve’s, her head on his chest, her body adjusting better to a lying position, moving her arm from under her so it doesn’t fall sleep. Steve’s breathing is even and hot on her hair, one of his hands falling off the couch, and their bodies are lined together, cozy and stable. 

Betty raises her head from her book when she realizes what Steve and Tasha are talking about.

“You’ve been taking dancing lessons?” She asked, politely, marking her page on the book. Bruce is finally allowed to move his leg.

“Yes”, agrees Steve, straightening his shirt, “I mean, Sharon and I have gone out dancing now and then, but we only ever did the sway back-and-forth kind of dance, so I thought…”, he shrugs, “I figured I’d learn some proper moves. She dances way better when she changes partners.”

“Steve has asked her out this end of week to demonstrate his new dancing abilities”, informed Thor, easily supporting tiny Jane on his lap at the loveseat farther away where they were discussing movie options.  
“Yes, that”, agreed the man again, self-aware, “but I’m not sure”, he confessed, “everyone at class is really gentle, and I only ever danced with them, so I don’t know if I’m any better or if they are only being nice about it.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so, Steve?” Asked Jane, juggling about five different DVD’s on her hands, “we could give you a second opinion.”

“That’s a great idea!” Lights up Tasha, “it’s a real great idea, that’s why I like you, Foster, you know what, let’s do it right now, just let me get, JARVIS, hey, JARVIS, pick up a nice record, pull up something like, I don’t know, what do you usually dance at, Steve?”

“Do you really think it’s a good idea?” Replies the man, blushing harder.

“Sure! Why not? You’re between friends, Capsicle, and I am myself a great dancer.”

“At Asgard, we are instructed at the arts of dance as well”, informs Thor, pleased, “though midgardian dances differ greatly from those.”

“But he never steps in my feet,” adds Jane, helpfully, pecking him on the lips.

“Can you dance, Tasha?” Asks Bruce, surprised, helping Betty to her feet as she perks up at the idea.

“If I can _dance?”_ The women snorts, “please, Bruce, I’ve been taking dancing classes as soon as could take two steps back and forth without falling on my diapers.”

“Really?” Inquires Steve, blinking and relenting to the situation, as everyone is already up and obviously eager.

“Well, no, not really,” Tasha thinks for a moment, “I only took them from ten onwards.”

“Oh”, the blonde tilts his head, a slow smile spreading across his façade, “can’t imagine a ten year old you applying to dancing lessons.”

She smiles mysteriously, and doesn’t tell him, not yet, not until much time later, that she hadn’t applied at all. She can still remember aunt Peggy suggesting it to Maria all those years ago, and how it became something they shared when the woman came to visit, waltzing rather awkwardly at first and then specially graciously when Tasha was older and exceeded at it, but mainly it was something that allowed her to spend time with her mother, that made Maria smile approvingly and clap at her new improvements. 

“It came in handy”, she says instead, as Thor helpfully moves the center table away, “I, sir, can lead, follow, dance backwards and on heels.”

“Wait, wait, I know that one!” He thinks for a moment, rolling the words about in his tongue, “ahm, Priscilla?”

“Oh, Steve, so close”, she laughs, “Rent.”

“Bugger.” He sighs, and laughs along.

They pull up Steve’s favorites and JARVIS play them on Tasha’s top of the line sound system. They exchange partners now and then, Thor being touchingly mindful of Betty and much more reckless with Tasha, spinning her until she’s positively dizzy and laughing. Eventually, Clint and Phill wander in the living room and join the dancing and of course Clint is right, Phill is good _at everything_. Bruce mainly just moves around in a circle, but he smiles adorably and pays attention to avoid foot-stepping.

Steve was being silly, of course: Super Soldier reflexes and great learning ability made him one of the best dancers in the room already, up there with Phill and Tasha, and the woman happily teaches him the really impressive moves, spinning on the middle of the living room and coordinating their dancing as well as they coordinate their attacks, the trust already established and the rhythm easily set by the music.

One-two-three, one-two-three, wow, you’re great at it, Steve, keep going! One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three.

One-two.

One-two.

One-two…

Tasha buries her face on his shirt, and when Nat walks in, the two of them are already fast asleep on the couch, breathing easily, in and out, one-two.


	27. Tabloids Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: depiction of an attack at a shopping mall who's perceived as the work of terrorists. Also, depiction of media being obnoxious and outright lying.

Tasha and Steve managed to go out in five successful dates, before their sixth met with its inevitable conclusion.

The first real date they get they go for pizza to be on the safe side – it’s the kind of place no one pays attention to you (Steve calls it politeness, Tasha calls it having better pizza to mind themselves with), with a strict no-paparazzi policy, dim lights and food that is to die for. The last first date Tasha had that she actually had been nervous about had involved pestering Pepper for the entire afternoon trying to find a good outfit, and Tasha had still been reluctant of letting the Arc Reactor show. With Steve, though, it’d be pointless, and so she finds it surprisingly easy to pick what to wear.

They meet there, for seeing they live in the same house, someone picking the other up would be way too moronic. Steve arrives first, _of course_ , and judging by his stance and smile as he spots her, he probably spent more time than her on his wardrobe, and that’s so completely _Steve_ , Tasha finds it two times more endearing. She’s wearing a silk red blouse, and the light of the Arc Reactor sips through along with the candle’s glow, but she barely notices it because the pizza is delicious and between bites Steve’s hand sneaks towards hers under the table.

They have gone out for pizza a million times already, in every possible situation, surrounded by loud, generally drunk teammates, or in the dead silence of the first hours of the mourning, trashed after this or that Avengers related issue, on fancy restaurants where they gave you cutlery and 24 hours places in which the napkins were made of plastic. This feels just different enough to make her skin tingle and for one reason or another, no one else spots them kissing at their table on the corner.

Their second date, Tasha sorts through the mountain of invitations she gets every week and pick an arts exposure for charity, and she hesitates a moment, her hand on her cellphone, wondering if that’s a good idea, considering all the media that’ll be present, but in the end she dials his number because after all, any excuse is valid for getting Steve into a tuxedo.

And it’s probably a testimony as to why Sharon was so upset and how they had managed to pin for each other for so long, that no one even bats an eye when they arrive together, and Steve comments shyly they do go to a lot of events together, don’t they? They share a look for a moment, and say “for the Avengers” at the same time, and then have to muffle their laughter on each other’s shoulders.

Once inside, Tasha does her best to ignore when people _stare_ at what she’s drinking. “It’s _juice_ , your assholes”, she feels the need to hiss at them, but ignores it in favor of moving on to the next piece, accompanying a starry-eyed Steve that never drinks anyway, so at least she isn’t screwing with no one else’s fun. The brunette leans on his arm, listening to his voice rather than to what he’s actually saying, and smiles at his genuine excitement: art is generally beyond her, but at least Tasha can appreciate the view.

If they were standing together closer than usual, touching much more than they used to, no one comments on it, and it’s only when they have reached Avengers Tower that she tugs him by the tie because, well, Tasha might have a tie fetish, so sue her, and they kiss as if they’ll die were their lips to ever part.

When Tasha wakes up, they are both lying face down, breathing each other’s air, Steve’s arm thrown carelessly over her back, his lips still smeared of red lipstick. She smiles lazily.

Third date is at an arcade for the heck of it, and they go for discretion, with baseball hats, comfortable jeans and t-shirts, but when they start breaking the top records, and children start piling up around them, of course they are recognized. It’s great fun, and Steve is awesome with kids as always, keeping them from biting each other to get to them and complimenting this or that whenever they ask for autographs or a picture, but it’s not much on the whole spending time alone thing, so afterwards, they buy ice cream and eat leaning against a wall and when Tasha goes on tiptoe to kiss him, she feels as if she’s fifteen again, only way better.

Steve takes her to a day-long convention on nanotechnology and robotic prosthesis as a fourth date, and she feels like she’s six again, and she can’t express what a perfect boyfriend he is for finding out about this, considering everyone else here is almost as mad as she is. They hold hands more often than they don’t, not even noticing it, and take Tasha’s private jet back home at the end of the day, Steve smiling as his girlfriend practically bounces of enthusiasm.

When they arrive at the tower, he rolls his eyes as Tasha obviously is dying for going back to her workshop. He leans down and kisses her, his hands cupping her elbows lightly, “go ahead, put your evil goatee on and get to work”, he tells her.

“Don’t be absurd, Steve”, she retorts, rolling her eyes “evil goatees are for _male_ supervillains. _Female_ supervillains show too much cleavage and wear knee-high heeled leather boots.” Concludes the brunette, shaking a finger at him.

“That works too”, Steve tells her and Tasha smiles before kissing him again and running to her evil plans.

The fifth date is abroad, while they have to wait for Bruce to get his ass down there for the mission to start. Steve and her wander into a park with carefully planned gardens, all but _screaming_ idyllic with its colorful flowers and families taking the dog for a walk. Tasha was smart enough not to put on the armor yet and she pulls Steve aside when they find a particularly concealing willow. Incredible as it is, the brunette has grown past the phase where she incited international incidents, but they are not the only lovebird couple scattered across the trees, and dating at a park is not, by far, the worst way to spend time before a mission.

After the mission, everyone is more or less wrecked, and Tasha is already dozing off on painkillers when Steve helps her into bed. The brunette holds his pulse as he motions to leave.

“What’s the hurry?” She asks, tugging him back, “those ribs are gonna take you all night to click back at place.”

Steve smiles, “I was only going to the bathroom”, he says.

“Oh”

“I’ll be right back”, he promises.

“Good.”

They sleep touching only slightly, avoiding each other’s sore spots and Steve accidently asphyxiating a drugged Tasha with his weight, and he remembers not to turn off the lights all the way down.

When the relationship hits the three months mark, Tasha starts thinking something is seriously wrong.

“You’d think they’d have noticed already”, she tells Pepper, sincerely baffled, when they’re dealing with Stark Industries’ related issues.

“Rolling Stones wants an interview”, replies her CEO, simply, “you could tell them.”

“And when have I ever offered information on my personal life out of my own free will?” Says Tasha, indignantly stopping on the corridor, turning to Pepper and landing a dramatic hand over her heart.

Pepper stares at her. “Do I _need_ to answer that, Iron Woman?”

Tasha laughs, “yeah, okay, let me rephrase it. When have I ever offered information on Steve’s personal life out of my own free will?”

“Well, isn’t he okay with being public about it?” Inquires the ginger, fixing the brunette’s already perfect hair. She uses it on buns for business-related issues, for the simple reason Pepper likes her better on them. Tasha makes a face.

“Well, yeah, says he. But you know what he’s like”, she points out, as they make their way to the office, “if there’s one thing Steve Rogers is capable of hating aside from, you know, dictatorship and the such, is _paparazzi.”_

Pepper moans emphatically. “Trying to shelter him from the media circus?” She concludes, moving about the room being efficient and gorgeous.

Tasha snickers, “let those hyenas fight for their carcasses”, declares her, sitting at Pepper’s right and taking her phone out, “no need to throw ‘em a bone.”

Them, because karma is a bitch and hates Tasha, they find out about their relationship the following week.

Of course they had discussed it, and had done so before their first date: Tasha knew the press, had been familiar with it for many years, and ever since the whole coming-out-as-bisexual issue, then the kidnapped-by-terrorists issue, then the I’m-a-super-heroine-issue, they were positively obsessed with her personal life.

And she hadn’t even, _ever_ , done a playboy edition!

In fact, considering all of Tasha’s scandals over the years, there’s very little official photos in which she isn’t fully clothed. Photos taken at parties, red carpets, ceremonies and what have you are the closest, where Tasha is depicted in dresses that show cleavage, back or legs. But as for magazines, photoshoots, interviews, she’s always wearing the same typical outfit she sports at board meetings: suits, cause she hates skirts, and nice-fitting suits at that, for Tasha has one hell of a good taste, thank you very much. Her shirts are always buttoned up to an uninteresting point, cause she doesn’t need old men ogling her breasts when it’s already _that_ hard to get them to think with their upper brain. She’s comfortable and efficient in those clothes.

The reason why she has shown up naked so often on the media is because she honestly doesn’t see the need for the fuss. Those are only _breasts_ – the only difference between hers and a man’s is that hers are bigger. That is her _body_ , everyone has one, you know? Tasha is not ashamed of it, she’s comfortable within it, and so she does not see the reason to act as if the world is falling down every time a paparazzi manages to take a picture. She goes to the beach in the bikini she feels like going, puts on the dresses she likes best and walks to the Starbucks at the corner on shorts if that is what she had on when the need for coffee hit her.

When Obadiah was still around to give her crap about it she rolled her eyes at him and told him to go comb a monkey, and ignored the slight chill on her nape as he touched her shoulder. Nowadays, she really wishes she hadn’t.

However, for as much as Tasha was at ease with her own body, she had soon learned that the world simply did not share her opinion. And that’s why she shows up for business and interviews on suits and never, ever accepts an invitation for sexy photoshoots. Thanks, but no thanks. I won’t dress up just so any pervert with access to a journal stand can drawl all over my picture – I only dress up when I want to.

Then the Arc Reactor came along, as well as the Iron Woman, and everything became more complicated, and ever since then the press has followed her every step like famished leeches – they were _bound_ to notice she was banging Captain America as soon as they set foot out on their first date.

Or so she had presumed.

“You know what they’ll say”, had warned Tasha, over a bowl of cereal, giving Steve a fateful look “about us.”

And where to even _begin_ , right? The sheer amount of bullshit they could come up with was overwhelming to even consider. Tasha particularly dreaded the moment they started to speculate as to why Steve had chosen Tasha out of all people and if that meant she was hetero now.

 _Oh, I don’t know_. The brunette thought to herself, ironically. _Just let me check here for a minute, okay? Oh, would you look at that. Nope!, still like tits. Sorry!_

Fuckers.

“But we’ll know better”, replied Steve, calmly, reaching across the table to hold her hand. “They’ll find out eventually. So I figured… we could approach this the Natasha Stark way.”

She smiled peevishly, “do whatever the fuck we want and tell them to go suck dick?”

“With less cussing, hopefully”, he replied, fondly, chuckling.

They had shaken hands and agreed to go about their relationship as if they weren’t constantly persecuted by paparazzi.

On their sixth date, they are finally caught.

And they only went to the movies.

But of course, as it was bound to happen, the date is interrupted by an Avengers emergency and they have to dart out of the cinema and into their suits to handle a mass poisoning at a shopping mall. The shoppers have become extremely aggressive, and they have to keep them from killing each other without actually killing _them_ , which is always a pain in the ass. Tasha approaches the source to try and determine who liberated the toxin, and is nearly squashed inside her suit due to structural damage causing the mall to collapse.

“I hate when they use civilians like this”, whispers Steve, afterwards, helping Tasha move the rubble. She is out of her helmet because it had been hammed by a particularly raging old lady, and she pauses for a moment, throwing a big chunk of concrete on the nearby dumpster. She examines his face, leans in and holds his shoulder.

“We got everyone out today”, she says, softly and low, and it’s worth nothing for every other day in which there was so little they could do, but for today is enough, and today is all they have to get through.  
Steve agrees, and leans forward. Tasha kisses him, a quick press of lips only for reassurance.

And someone flashes a photo.

“Well, it’s out”, announces Nat that night, when everyone is eating dinner at the living room in respect to Clint’s ankle, who had been strained. She sits at the center table, where they can see her and opens her laptop, where a news site proudly displays:

_CAPTAIN AMERICA AND IRON WOMAN: AMERICA’S NEXT HOT COUPLE OR HOT MESS?_

_“Please_ tell me they didn’t do that”, groans Tasha, “that pun is lame and it gives me pain. The rhyme was unintentional.”

“They took that photo today”, points out Phill, and Steve leans in to inspect it.

“Figures”, he says, shrugging, “well, I guess this is it, huh?”

“This is only the beginning”, says Tasha, darkly. “This will be gay oreos all over again.”

The media doesn’t disappoint her: they set up the whole circus. The photo goes viral harder than the nyan cat, and although Tasha feels a bit smug that they are both so absurdly photogenic, it gets boring fast – it’s just that is the only one available out there of them kissing, and the son of a bitch who had managed to snap it did a good job. They are at the center of the shot, Tasha standing over the pile of debris, Steve at the foot of it, their outfits contrasting sharply with the grey background as they lean in towards each other, her hand on his shoulder, their eyes closed and lips connected.

“Maybe we should just go out there and kiss again so they have some other photo to use”, sighs Tasha, annoyed.

The social sites explode with speculation and shipping wars, as the little bastards always do. #StarkandStripes trends on twitter, as well as #It’llEndinTears and #ChocolatePie (that last one for completely unrelated reasons, actually. It’s just that it gave Tasha _ideas_ ). There’s hysterical little weepy girls accusing Tasha of seducing Steve, anal-retentive old man saying this will be harmful to the team, noisy frustrated people predicting it won’t last and poison-tongued middle-aged speculating on how long has this been going on, and why had Steve broke up with SHIELD agent Sharon Carter in the first place?

“I can make that one disappear and no one will ever know”, suggests Nat, but Steve gives her his “we are not using violence” stare.

“Hey, look!” Calls out Tasha, gleefully, “my fans think Steve is going to suck the life off me and that he can’t keep up with all this hotness”, she turns the screen around so they can see the blog she’s reading, “direct quote. Aren’t they cute?”

The journalists spin enough speculations on how this happened to cover all the walls at Tasha’s workshop – she takes mental notes carefully on who said what so she will never again make half a statement for that one resentful, bitter journalist who insinuated she couldn’t keep up a monogamous relationship, cause Tasha knows she’s doing that out of pure spite, having antagonized her ever since the brunette failed to call her the next day. She remembers, however, to send flowers to that other columnist whom she met at the beginning of her career who was sensible enough not to expect any phone calls and that ended a supportive column stating that “they’ll be brilliant together”.

“They are digging through their archives, all right”, says Bruce, one breakfast as they pass through the small mountain of tabloids depicting Steve and Tasha, “this incident was, what? Two years ago?”

“Exactly how many pictures of you and Cap fighting back to back there are, Tasha?” Inquires Clint, examining an article titled _Didn’t We See That Coming?_ “I’ve lost count of how many they’ve used already.”

“What can I say, someone has to keep his star-spangled ass from getting kicked” teases the woman and Steve rolls his eyes at her.

“More like someone needs to keep you from blowing yourself up”, he replies, flipping through his own pile, “and I’m more worried about how many shots they have of us going out. How do we never notice them?” He turns to Tasha worriedly, shaking a magazine that shows them leaving a greek restaurant, just some weeks before they started dating.

“I don’t know you, but I’ve learned to pointedly ignore those pests before I was nine”, answers the woman, reaching out to take the tabloid from him. _“’Last Friday, Captain America and Iron Woman, or better yet, Steve Rogers and Natasha Stark rocked the celebrities world by sharing a kiss on the remains of a shopping center targeted by terrorist groups’_ , the fuck it wasn’t a terrorist group, what’s wrong with this country, no one can sneeze without it being the work of terrorists, _‘although none could be found to make a statement about the surprising PDA…’”_

“What is a PDA?” Interrupts Thor, frowning.

“Public display of affection”, translates Phill and Tasha goes on.

 _“…a close source that has asked to remain anonymous says it has generated much tension amongst the Avengers. Apparently, the couple hadn’t thought to share their new intimacy with their  
teammates…”_ Tasha shakes her head and puts it down, “Gosh, people, if you are gonna lie at least make it interesting.”

“You want interesting?” Nat replies, her feet propped up on the table, “I’ve read two tabloids saying you are pregnant, one saying you are only friends with benefits, this one here you might like because it paints a long, sad story of your star-crossed love, now this one is saying you have eloped to get married, this one says you are leaving the Avengers, this one says we’ve always had it coming…”

“Please stop, I’m going dizzy”, sighs Steve, shaking his head and pushing the closest issues always from him, “is it _so hard_ to believe that we are dating and that’s _it?”_

“Yes”, echoes the entire group, unflinching, and Cap gives them an exasperated look.

“Well, I’m sorry, love, but it’s the absolute truth”, states Tasha, shrugging, “people find it difficult to understand we are friends, let alone in a committed relationship. After all”, she picks up a discarded tabloid on the floor, “I’m _‘notoriously known as an inveterate polygamist, poorly accepting of the marriage institution’_ , remember?”

“Bullshit”, replies Steve, deliberately tossing the magazine on the trash can, “you’re the most faithful person I’ve ever known and you have nothing against marriage, you said so yourself when Pepper got engaged. I just”, he lets out air tensely, “I hate that they keep attacking you, and I hate the way they act as if I can’t decide whom I date by myself. _I_ made the decision to be with you, and I’m happy about it, and I’m lucky you wanted me back!”

Tasha softens at this, and leans over to kiss him, pressing their lips until his loose the hard line they get when Steve gets angry, “I know”, she agrees, squeezing his knee, “but what was that again you said when we decided to be public about this?”

“We’ll know better”, answers the blonde, gazing at her for a moment before nodding and straightening up “you are right. You’re right. Okay.” He looked around, “who’s up to making a bonfire and setting all of those in flames?”

Nat, Clint and Thor smile largely at the idea and get up at once to collect gasoline. Tasha lingers behind, chuckling, “I knew I had a destructive influence over you”, she whispered at Steve, getting up and landing another kiss to his lips, “love you, Steve.”

“Love you too, sweetheart”, replied him, affectionately, as Nat passed through to get a box of matches.

“You are already using pet names?” She asked, a half smile quirking her lips, and Tasha flipped her off without even bothering to look up. The ginger rolled her eyes and exited the kitchen again.

“But we really should do something about that”, points out Steve, getting up to help collecting all the tabloids. “Before the rumors start getting even wilder than they already are.”

“Do what, exactly?” Asks Tasha, accepting a pile from the blonde and fixing it so they wouldn’t all fall halfway to the roof. “It’s not like you can reason with them, Cap, they are an irrational race, born from petty curiosity and utter lack of having a life, forever set apart from the rest of human kind.”

“Sometimes, I am still amazed at how you can sound so serious when saying that kind of stuff”, admits Steve, laughing, picking up the last pile of garbage.

“Well, it’s the absolute truth!” She says, smiling. “But seriously, what do you have in mind?”

“Well, at first I thought about a press conference”, admitted Steve, looking at her, “but then I remember it is you who we were talking about.”

“I have a bit of a historic”, mused Tasha, impartially.

“And then I had an actual _good_ idea”, he made a face just to build the moment, “what do you think of Ellen?”

“Ellen?” The brunette stops in the middle of the stairs and turns to stare at her boyfriend, “as in Ellen DeGeneres?”

“Yups.”

 _“The_ Ellen DeGeneres?”

“That’s the one.”

“The Ellen that’s married to beautiful Portia de Rossi?”

“Exactly.”

“And that has a program?”

“To which she has invited us.”

“She has?”

“I was coming down to tell you and then saw the pile of tabloids.”

“And you want us to go?”

“I think it could be a good idea.”

“So let me understand this”, she put the tabloids on the steps, spread her hands on front of her as a “time out” gesture, crossing her arms, _“you_ want _us_ to go to Ellen DeGenere’s program to talk about our four and something month old relationship in a somewhat sane ambient that will not end up in anyone bashing us on the hope that the paparazzi will get off our back once they’ve been fed their quota of gossip?”

“That’s the idea.”

Tasha stared at him for a whole ten seconds, before breathing out, shaking her head. “For fuck’s sake, Rogers, I love you.”

He grinned widely at her, “so that an yes?”

“That’s a ‘hell, yes’”, replied the brunette, collecting her pile again. “Let’s get these burned, then go phone her people and say we accept.” She proposed, hurrying up the stairs.


	28. These Past Four Years

“Steve! _STEEEEEVE!_ Get your ass down here, hurry up!”

“If we aren’t being attacked by extraterrestrial beings, I’m not hurrying up”, replies Steve, sticking his head out of the kitchen, “or else half the corns won’t pop”.

 _“Which_ extraterrestrial beings?” Retorts Tasha, looking at him over the back of the couch, “the ones with the freaky family composition or the ones who almost caused an intergalactic incident by misreading Peter’s accidental web shooting for a toxic substance attack?”

“Anyone that wants to kill us”, answers the blonde, going back to his popcorn.

“No, but seriously, hurry up”, insists Tasha, her attention going back to her newest project, an ongoing online talk with Carol, a site she had recently discovered about engines, signing up for a convention and watching the special on TV, “we are going to be on in six point twenty one minutes.” 

“You hacked into the broadcasting servers, Tasha?” Inquired Steve, appearing at the kitchen door again, a pan in one hand, an ironic expression in his face “again?”

“I’m not harming anyone”, she defends herself, unbothered, smiling, “c’mom, get over here or you’ll miss us being photogenic on Ellen, you were the one who wanted to watch it.”

“Coming, coming”, replied the blonde, sitting next to Tasha with a bowl of popcorn. She leaned forward to give him space, then slumped back towards his chest, getting cozy and grabbing a fistful of popcorn.   
“How many things you are doing right now?” He asked, amused.

“Hummmmm?” Murmured Tasha, blinking her still mascara-coated eyelashes at him innocently.

“That doesn’t work when you are looking like a raccoon”, teased Steve, affectionately, “and I know when you are using Extremis, we’ve been dating for four years, remember?”

“I haven’t _had_ it for even half of that time”, disagreed Tasha, slumping further down on the couch, “and it isn’t four years until one and a half month from today.”

“True, but I know when your mind is in five different places at the same time,” informed Steve, getting comfortable, “so by default I know when you are using Extremis.”

“Shhh, it’s beginning.” Berated the brunette, falsely serious. Steve smiled.

The best thing about living alone, decided Tasha, when Steve tossed her a blanket, was being able to just get inside and get rid of your party dress without actually bothering to change into suitable-for-company clothes. They had just come back from Clint and Phill’s three years anniversary, which had only been an excuse to throw a party – seriously, who celebrates being married for _three years?_ – and get the old Avengers team back together in a reunion that was much needed. It’d been some time ever since they had last saw each other, what with the dissolution of the group, and although everyone had gone their different ways, it had been great seeing all the old psychopaths getting drunk together again.

Except, of course, for Steve and Tasha. 

“We are their parents”, had sighed the brunette on the ride back home, “they used to say we were Mom and Dad, and they were right, Gosh, everyone drunk and we having to put them to sleep. Steve, we are their _parents.”_

Steve laughed, “and you worried about having children. We have buckets of them.”

“We have a very dysfunctional family”, pointed out Tasha, shaking her head, but the corner of her lips were tilted in a smile. 

They had had that talk years ago, when the brunette started getting anxious about, as her brain had named it, _The Kids Issue._ She saw the way Steve was with kids, she knew him well enough to know he’d be the guy to want to settle down and have _babies_ , and she had heard that old line times enough to have developed a deep aversion to it – _you’ll change your mind._  
 _“I won’t”_ , she had told Steve, when the matter had finally come up between them, holding on so tight to the Iron Woman repulsor she had been working on she almost broke it. “Everyone keeps saying I will, but I’m nearly forty and I know _I won’t.”_

Steve had examined her face for a couple of minutes, then shook his head and told her he respected her decision.

“Aw, they’re not that bad”, replied the blonde, smiling at her from the passenger’s seat, “you and Clint seemed to have been having a good time.”

Tasha laughed, shaking her head at that. It was always weird seeing Clint and Nat gulp their shots down and not being able to try to drink them under the table, but over the years, she had become more or less used to it – and drunk Clint was still as funny when Tasha was sober as he had been when she was equally pissed. 

Isn’t it lucky that she choose to fall in love with a person who can’t get drunk, even if he wanted to? 

“Oh, he was just remembering the bachelor party me and Nat threw him.” Explained Tasha, amused. It had involved strippers (both genders), booze (Tasha had powered through the night without a sip) and Clint’s weepy confession of love that they had put on tape and emailed Phill, nearly getting arrows stuck in their asses for that.

Out of mutual agreement, Steve had stuck with Phill’s bachelor party. Male strippers were a bit too much for him, and weren’t Phill’s thing anyway. The strippers, that is. Not the male thing.

Now, three years later, the night had been complete madness, and they were still utterly starry-eyed for each other, so Tasha counted that one as a win. Steve and she had come back to the penthouse they had moved into, the brunette had left her dress and sandals at their bedroom then crawled back on their sofa on her underwear because Steve wanted to see the recap they were doing of the decade’s best moments.  
“It’s the middle of the year”, had protested Tasha, not bothering to take off her makeup, “and it’s three a.m. or something, why the fuck are they broadcasting this?”

“They broadcasted it at last year’s new year’s eve”, explained Steve, hanging his coat properly on the wardrobe “this is just a rerun.”

Halfway through it they discovered they were in it, and that the interview they had given Ellen when their relationship had first got out was going to be broadcasted. By then, Tasha had given Steve a suspicious look, but ignored it in favor of nagging him for popcorn, because no time is a bad time for popcorn.

“And there we are”, said Steve, swallowing properly before speaking, his hand drumming absently on Tasha’s ribs. She raised an eyebrow discreetly at him, but said nothing.

That interview had been quite fun, Tasha thinks, watching it years later. Ellen had been her usual self, and they had embarrassed Steve, had dismissed the craziest rumors the media had come up with and given the reporters another kiss shot to publish before they run out of ways of displaying the same picture.

_“Who hogs the blankets?”_

_“Steve! Steve does. Everyone assumes it’s me, but he’s as greedy with them as Scrooge before Christmas. That whole kid from Brooklyn thing he has going on? It’s a façade, a complete façade.”_

_“She says that because she’s too busy kicking the sheets to hog them.”_

Steve and Tasha laugh, because that hasn’t changed one bit – of course they had failed to mention at the interview that Steve robbed the blankets because of his nightmares of freezing to death, and that Tasha kicked them because they made her feel suffocated, and not being able to breath sent her into panic mode.

All in all however, the interview is nostalgic, and they are obviously Very Much in Love as Steve has a brief moment and says how lucky he is to be dating her and Tasha replies it was no luck at all. She groans, as she did the first time they watched the interview, at her own sappiness, but Steve gives her the same wide grin and kisses her. Despite what the tabloids predicted, it’s been four years (almost), and through the most dramatic free-falls and violent upward turns their relationship had went through, one thing remained truth: they were too stubborn to stop loving each other.

Steve rested his cheek against Tasha’s hair and squeezed her hand, as their younger selves left the screen, the interview over. There was a brief moment of silence.

 _“Steeeeeeeeeve”_ , says Tasha, leaning away from the man and twisting to look at him, “is there something you want to tell me?”

He hesitates, opening and closing his mouth, then nods, “yes. Yes, as a matter of fact, there is.”

The brunette turns around to sit facing him, the blanket twisted in her legs “so say it.”

Steve takes a deep breath, and Tasha already knows what he’ll say, has known it for about a week now – yet she still hangs on every word. “Tasha”, he begins, taking one of her hands between his and squeezing. “I love you. I have for as long as I have known you, and I mean _really_ known you. You are amazing in so many ways – you’re brilliant, witty, hilarious, caring, you are passionate, sometimes you’re completely mad, and some other times you are _infuriating_ , but I love that about you, too. You’re my best friend, my favorite person, and I’m head over heels in love with you. I don’t know how I would’ve gone through our first months at the Avengers without you, and these past four years I realized… I don’t want to go through any other year without you.”

She can feel the shape of the ring under her palm, and it’s so tiny, yet it feels heavy, and it’s exactly like the first time they kissed, a small, quiet sensation that makes everything absurdly different. Tasha looks at him, her eyes running hungrily over his strong face, familiar blue eyes, long lashes, that bottom lip she’s slightly obsessed over, blonde hair, but above all the _expression_ , that’s all Steve and is all hers.

She wants it. She has wanted it ever since she realized he was planning something, ever since she caught him whispering with Pepper and put two and two together. Four years of dating and what she feels about him – what he makes her feel – haven’t changed at all. And Tasha might not be completely sure as to why she wants to marry him so much, but fuck it, all that matters is that she does.

“Will you marry me, Tash?” Whispers Steve, turning her hand palm up with the ring resting on top.

Tasha gulps, looking down at it, “your mother’s?” She guesses.

“Yeah”, agrees him, shyly, one hand still holding hers, them both cupping the ring. Tasha takes a deep breath and looks back up at him – and she knows he’ll notice her eyes are wet, and her voice rougher, but it doesn’t matter at all.

“I’m not half as good at… at anything as I am when I’m doing it next to you.” Whispers Tasha, gulping because her breath gets caught up in her throat. “And that’s the truth.” She nods once, then twice, then madly because the words won’t get out. “Yes.”

_“Yes?”_

_“YES!”_ She laughs, a bit teary, a bit trembling and shakes her head at him, “oh my _God_ , Steve, what the fuck is with the shocked tone, who are you, Ron Weasley?” Blurts out Tasha, holding back tears, “what did you think I’d do, chop your head off?”

“No”, he’s laughing now, laughing and blinking, his eyes shining, his grin growing larger and happier by the second, “I just… it’s just that… I thought you might not…”

“Put the ring on, Rogers!” Interrupts the brunette, laughing too, because he’s being way too adorable right now.

Steve takes her hand, the motion familiar and warm, and slips the ring on her finger. It fits smoothly, and she knows he’s obviously checked before if it would, and this is their life, the same formula it has always followed – no fancy dinners, no elaborate propositions, just the both of them lying on the sofa, Steve being Steve and Tasha being Tasha, she’s in her underwear with blurred eyeliner that makes her look like a raccoon, and he’s still reeking of alcohol and smoke from the party, even though none of them drank a thing, and they are officially engaged.

They look at each other for a long moment, and suddenly they are kissing, no one quite remembering how it had happened and no one having the slightest will to care.

“But just so we’re clear”, adds Tasha, between his lips, just before she forgets it, “I’m not taking your last name.”

Steve laughs, pulling her down with him, “never thought you would.”

They don’t make it to the bedroom that night.


	29. No One Else

“You’re just loving it, aren’t you?” Teases Steve, shaking his head, a half-smile coloring his face. Tasha looks up at him, pushing her sunglasses up and raising one eyebrow.

“Well, _yeah_. What, did you think I was marrying you for your _money?”_

Steve rolls his eyes.

Truth be told, Tasha is having way more fun with this than she probably ought to.

Reactions to their announcement are varied, and you really can’t blame her for having fun with people’s shocked faces. She has no idea why everyone thinks she’s against marriage or something – she’s a feminist, you know, not an anarchist – but Tasha really isn’t. Up until a short time ago she thought it wasn’t for her, not trusting herself to be able to make it work for the rest of her life, but it doesn’t mean other people couldn’t. The brunette had never doubted Happy and Pepper would grow old and wrinkled together or that Phill and Clint would stick until death did them apart. And she certainly hadn’t anything against people deciding to move in together, share health care plans and throw a party to celebrate having made it work – which was basically marrying in a nutshell. 

Seriously, where did people get the idea Tasha has anything against marriages? 

“If two people want to get married, then fucking let them”, she replies when asked, unbothered. “It isn’t of anyone else’s business.”

“Okay”, agrees Clint, eyeing her as he helps test a new targeting system, “but why do _you_ want to get married?”

Tasha takes a moment to answer that, typing away in her screen, considering the question. She’s not much sure herself. The wedding in itself – the church, flowers, dress, invitations, that in itself holds no appeal for her, and they are not even sure yet how they’ll pull it off. It’s not about becoming “Ms. Rogers” either, since she’ll not be taking Steve’s name, fuck that, that’s an archaic practice that perpetuates ridiculous possession concepts. 

“Why do people marry, you know?” She replies, pressing enter, “I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

Clint smile, attempting to knock her off the rail and she kicks him in the hip, jumping back to the ground, “me neither”, he tells her, preparing his bow. “Congrats, Tasha.”

She smiles.

Other people’s reaction are much more flamboyant, and Tasha has to admit she’s having more or less of a blast as they tell their friends and get stared at. She could be annoyed bit it, but once the shock wears off, they are all sincerely enthusiastic about the news. Pepper is probably the best of them. She holds Tasha so tight she nearly suffocates her friend, but it’s great, it’s okay, it’s sincerely super, because it’s always a success when she can make Pepper look this excited, this happy for her. 

“Will you be my maid of honor?” Invites Tasha, and Pepper smacks her upside down the head.

“You still have to ask?” She retorts, drying her eyes discreetly. 

“Oh, you now”, the brunette smiles widely, “it’s my wedding after all, all sorts of apocalyptic stuff is bound to happen.”

“I’m used to it by now”, she rolls her eyes, “will I have to wear a bullet-proof vest under my dress?”

Tasha laughs and crushes Pepper in a hug again.

They decide to put off announcing it to the press until they actually know what kind of ceremony they’ll be throwing. Steve would like to marry at the church, and Tasha sees no problem with it – but she’s put off by the whole white dress thing.

“It doesn’t have to be a white dress”, replies Steve, knocking her to the ground – it’s typical of them discussing wedding plans in the middle of sparring sessions – “there’s no rules saying that. We could marry in jumpsuits if you want to”, he jokes, smiling and helping her get up.

“Jumpsuits. _Please”_ , she rolls her eyes and stretches, tightening her ponytail. Then it occurs to her, _“suits”_ , she says, slapping a hand against her forehead.

“What of them?” Asks Steve, frowning.

“You do realize”, replies Tasha, “that if we are to invite half our friends from the superhero community, our wedding party will be more of a fantasy party?”

“Oh”, he blinks, drinking a long gulp of water and agrees, “you’re right, superheroes, secret identities, of course.” He smiles, “do you have anything against a fantasy part?”

She taps the bottom of the bottle so water spills down his chin, smiling playfully, “’course not”, replies the brunette, walking back to the other side of the mattress to assume position, “it just gave me an idea, that’s all.”

The fact of the matter, as they first sit down to go through the guest’s list, is that they fall into two categories: the people they want to invite and the people who want to be invited. Unfortunately, those from the second category are mostly people who couldn’t care less for their marriage. It’s one of the many things that suck about being a public persona. Everyone that is someone expects to get an invitation to your   
wedding.

“Gosh, with that many superheroes and heroines together, the media will be on top of us like a pack of famine wolves”, grunts Tasha, rolling her eyes at the thought. “Not to mention the fucking villains.”

“So the villains are just an afterthought?” Pokes Steve, holding back a laugh. “The real problem is the media?”

“Well, _duh”,_ replies the woman, and they dissolve into laughter.

However, the problem keeps getting bigger and bigger in her head, and the more she thinks about it, the less she wants a public marriage. She doesn’t want to have to invite anyone she doesn’t wish to be there, she doesn’t want to pull a show for the media, she doesn’t want to wear a white dress and she doesn’t want to go through months of planning for a big, blow-out ceremony.

“Steve”, she tells him one night, pulling him inside the shower alongside with her, “what do you think we marry in costume?”

He smiles largely, that expression in his eyes when he is thinking she’s amazing and a tad bit crazy, the one that took so long for Tasha to learn to recognize.

Pepper is only mildly annoyed that she won’t get to put Tasha in a dress. “I had already thought up ideas”, sighs the ginger, shaking her head, “I was thinking of a red dress and golden jewelry, because I gave up on discretion years ago when it comes to you.”

“Well”, Tasha smiles, because the idea actually does sound interesting, “we’ll probably change for the party. Hard to dance in the Iron Woman and I can’t miss an opportunity to get Steve into his military uniform.”

“What’s with you and military man?”

“I think it was aunt Peggy’s fault.”

Pepper kisses her on the cheek, warm and happy, then proceeds being her awesome, highly efficient self.

They tell the media they are having a small ceremony, only closest friends and family, and Tasha has to threaten some people into leaving her wedding the fuck alone. #StarkandStripes trends again, and fans send them wedding presents, the most crazy, weird ones sharing space with saucepans and wall clocks. Her favorites are the personalized trinkets, the gifts that have obviously been thought through: someone sends them a pair of t-shirts reading _I’m Married to Freedom_. Lots of presents come stamped with a half Arc Reactor, half shield thingy, that seems to be their official symbol. Tasha rolls her eyes affectionately. Fans can come up with the craziest things.

“Everyone seems pretty excited about it”, comments Steve, examining an extra-large coffee mug with their symbol stamped on that reads “Avenger’s Best Dad”. Tasha received a matching “Avenger’s Best Mom” one.

“I think we just got really good at ignoring those who aren’t” remarks the brunette, “and I still think that one is mine.” 

The day they marry it’s sunny and reasonably warm. It turns out “family and closest friends” equals a whole lot of people, at least when it comes to Tasha and Steve, and no one is more surprised than her at the sheer amount of guests. She does her own hair, easily twisting locks into her fingers, braiding it sideways and letting it fall slightly under her left ear. It’s practical enough for the Iron Woman and pretty enough for Pepper’s approval. Her friend does her make-up, smiling all the time and chastising Tasha for moving. She neglects the helmet so Steve can see her face and stop panicking – she knows he is, knows him too well – and walks down the aisle in custom.

Steve smiles at her, dazzling blue eyes under the scowl, and this is both Steve Rogers and Captain America, marrying both Natasha Stark and Iron Woman, because no matter what, inside and out of costume, they don’t want anyone else by their sides.

As they’re leaving for the party, their friends making a huge fuss and wasting a remarkable amount of rice, Tasha puts on the helmet, getting ready to launch, and Steve asks her to open the faceplate. Pepper hooks a veil on it, insisting on a picture, and before Tasha knows her traitorous husband has dipped her, something she’s specifically told him not to try, but then he’s kissing her and as it often happens, it stops seeming important. 

Much as their first photo kissing, this one ends up going viral – no one quite knows how that happened – but Tasha doesn’t mind too much. On the following years, the picture is always around, framed on their nightstand, popping up at Google searches, depicted in magazines, but above all is a memory she holds very, very dear.

“Care for a dance, hubbie?” Jokes Tasha, holding Steve’s shoulders once they have changed into their party outfits – Tasha’s a short, wine-red, macaroni-strapped dress whose skirt resembles an upside down rose because it looks awesome, that’s why, and Steve is in his military uniform because the world is always a brighter place when Steve is in his military uniform. 

“I’d love to, Ms. Stark”, replies the blonde, taking her hand, getting up and guiding her to the dance floor smoothly. They fall easily into position, their bodies always so synched to each other, patterns already memorized long ago, and dance halfway between easy swaying and showing up.

On the back of her mind, the part that isn’t busy drinking herself _wasted_ of Steve, of his eyes, his face, his expression, his body, his hands, his heat, his love, _her_ Steve, _her husband_ , for no reason at all her brain decides to make a brief rerun of her life.

Natasha Stark, born from Maria and Howard Stark, an unmatchable genius by age five who idolized Captain America, whose closest parenting figures were the old family butler and an old friend of his father that had decided to put up with Howard’s jerkiness for the sake of his little girl, who had grown into an wild, slightly out of control bisexual teenager with a not-so-small crush on her best friend she’d never act on.

Yet, somehow all of this had given birth to the woman who became a superheroine, the one who survived three months of imprisonment on Afghanistan, who had, by sheer luck and an alien invasion, found something of a family, saved the world some couple of times, actually did act on the now nearly forgotten crush on her best friend, managed not to act on her other best friend, then went and fell in love with Steve Rogers, because they were both completely mad.

Steve smiled, twirling her around, and out of nowhere she ended up against Rhodey, who asked if she minded giving him a dance, and she said not at all, and for some reason everyone wanted a dance then, so Tasha swayed her way through her friends, Steve being equally demanded on his side. 

“Hey there”, smiled her husband when they finally met each other again, “thought you wouldn’t be coming back”, he jokes, his hands on the small of her back, swaying as the music melts into a slow dance.

“No such thing, love”, replied Tasha, wrapping her arms around his neck, “I’m Natasha Stark. I’ll _always_ come back. The world will never get rid of me.” She adds, petulant, raising her chin defiantly.  
“I’ll be counting on it”, whispers Steve, touching their foreheads and closing his eyes for a few heartbeats. 

She closes her eyes too, and for that moment, feels irrationally, painstakingly, burningly happy for being exactly whom she is. 

And no one else.


	30. Everything That Led Us Here

When it finally comes down to Tasha needing to decide – yes or no – she’s never really sure what made her choose the way she did.

Her mind is reeling at the speed of light, thought upon thought claiming her attention like a beehive inside her head, probabilities being played out and discarded, variables being accounted, information being revised, names, memories, theories, dates, long-since memorized lines. She’s sitting in her workshop, staring blankly ahead, her monitors already dismissed, because now it all comes down to thinking, _think and come up with a decision._

The SHRA was going to pass, wasn’t it?

It was. There was no backpedalling from it, now. The public was scared, and a scared public equaled a violent government, and so Tasha knew, with a dead-on certainty, that soon America would be breathing on their necks, pressing against people like Spiderman, who was practically still a kid under that mask, and demanding other people like herself to choose a side.

Could she at least do damage control? Keep it from escalating into hell? Into mistrust and persecution? Well, she’d bloody well _have to_. Tasha had to do something, had to keep this bomb from exploding on their faces, had to start calling in favors and negotiating and selling her pride for another day and another chance. But let it all be damned, what was she going to tell _Steve?_  
What was Steve going to say when he realized his country was getting ready to stab him in the back?

Tasha groaned. She knew what he was going to say. The real question was: should she tell him? Would she be able to make him see they were way past stopping this and had to begin damage control _right now?_

Or could she do it without him? Do what she had to and hope he’d listen to her afterwards – better ask for forgiveness than for permission? Was it really? Was risking Steve flipping out about the situation worthy getting his help on this?

Tasha looks over at their marriage photo she keeps on her workshop, and stares at it for a long time – Captain America and Iron Woman tying the knot. 

Then she gets up, her decision made, tosses the tool she’d been playing with on her workbench and leaves the workshop.

And what was the reason as to why the brunette chooses as she does?

Is it because she has been sharing a pillow with Steve for years and thus knows him in so many ways Tony didn’t? Or is it because lying down at night withholding a secret feels so much worse when the person you’re hiding it from is breathing in your neck? Was it because having the added risk of ruining a marriage as opposed to ruining a friendship, made her think thrice? Was it because Tasha couldn’t afford to lose Steve?

Did she really know it would be for the best, or was she only acting on her personal gain?

Because when Tasha stared at her marriage picture, she buried her head on her hands. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it because she was a selfish bitch and no matter how many times they had promised to each other their relationship wouldn’t get in the way of their duties, it had always been a lie. Their relationship was the _root_ of everything they had built together, it was the reason Captain America and Iron Woman always managed to pull it off when they needed to, and it could never be entirely separate from their responsibilities to the world.

Years ago, that thought had frightened her into sheer panic attack and sent her into a hot fit of denial that still hadn’t been powerful enough to make her ignore the truth. And the truth was that they needed each other.

And maybe the only thing their marriage had taught her is to accept that fact. Is to not be desperate to keep her control, desperate to not need him, because years ago she had already faced that particular demon and already accepted Steve and she needed each other.

Having fallen in love with Steve taught Tasha to lean on him.

And that is the ultimate reason as to why Natasha chooses better than Anthony, as to why she can see working together with her husband will save lives, and not sacrifice them. Tasha never stops doubting herself, always wondering if she did what she did for her own selfish reasons, to avoid losing him, but the truth of the matter, at the end of the day, is that it was the _right decision._

When Steve gets home that day, she sits him down at the kitchen table and opens a file, all hanging on Steve trusting her, all depending on them working together, and tells him about the SHRA.

As for him, Steve has learned the same lessons Tasha has. He has learned to listen to her, and he has learned to need her enough that he stops and tries to see it through her eyes when the whole situation is laid out in front of him.

The marriage of Captain America and Iron Woman avoids the Civil War on the moment Steve reaches out in their kitchen, holding her hand, and says he’ll back her up on this.

And he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... it is... done. Wow.
> 
> Well, this has been my first fic in the Superhusbands fandom. I was still getting the hang of things. I think some real nice moments got mixed up with stuff that I would completely re-write. All in all, there's never enough Natasha Stark fanfiction! 
> 
> Please, do check out my other fanfiction A Hundred Times Over. That one is completely beta-ed, and I promise the nonsensical AU is quite nice, and the writing and plot is a lot better.
> 
> Thank you very much to everyone who read it through the end! You are all amazing. ;D


End file.
